Canterbury's Archaeology 2005 – 2006 by Canterbury Archaeological Trust

Contents

FIELDWORK

CANTERBURY ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST LTD A

R E G I S T E R E D

C H A R I T Y

92a Broad Street, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 2LU tel: 01227 462062, fax: 01227 784724 email: admin@canterburytrust.co.uk http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk

The Canterbury Archaeological Trust is an independent charity formed in 1975 to undertake rescue excavation, research, publication and the presentation of the results of its work for the beneﬁt of the public.

Canterbury City Sites 1 St Mildred’s Tannery .............................................................................. 3 2 The ‘Cycle Facility’, St George’s Lane ................................................... 11 3 Choir House, Cathedral Precincts ......................................................... 13 4 Church Street St Paul’s ........................................................................ 15 5 Barton Court Grammar School, Longport .............................................. 17 6 H.M. Prison, Longport .......................................................................... 19 7 No. 14 Westgate Grove ................................................................................. 20 8 The House of Agnes, No. 71 St Dunstan’s Street ................................. 21 Canterbury District Sites 9 Hillborough Farm, Reculver Road, Herne Bay ............................................. 23 Kent Sites 10 Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough .................................................... 25 11 Kent Schools Project ............................................................................ 26 12 Admiralty Lookout, Dover Castle .......................................................... 29 13 Sandgate Sea Cadet Headquarters, Castle Road, Sandgate ................. 31 14 New Romney sewer scheme ............................................................... 33 15 Sussex Road, New Romney ................................................................. 35 16 Roman Road, Aldington ........................................................................ 37 17 Foster Road, Sevington ........................................................................ 38 18 Holborough Quarry, Snodland ............................................................... 40 19 Church Street, Hoo St Werburgh .......................................................... 41 20 Claxﬁeld Farm, Lynsted .................................................................................. 43 Other sites investigated during the year .......................................................... 44

Further copies of Canterbury’s Archaeology can be obtained from: Heritage Marketing and Publications Ltd Hill Farm, Castle Acre Road, Great Dunham, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, PE32 2LP tel: 01760 755645, fax: 01760 755316 email: sales@heritagemp.com http://www.heritagemp.com

BUILDING RECORDING

A B C D E F G

Nos 9–11 Mercery Lane and 5–7 The Parade, Canterbury .................... 45 Nos 8–9 The Parade and 25–26 St Margaret’s Street, Canterbury ....... 50 The Church of St Gregory the Great, Canterbury ................................... 56 Sunnyside, Wingham Well .................................................................... 57 Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, Margate .................................................... 58 No. 3 Millwall Place, Sandwich ............................................................. 61 The Hilden Manor public house, Tonbridge ................................................. 65

© 2007 Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

PALAEOENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES THE WHITEFRIARS PROJECT EDUCATION

............................................ 69

.......................................................... 71

........................................................................................... 72

THE GARDEN

......................................................................................... 75

THE FRIENDS

........................................................................................ 77

MEMBERS OF THE TRUST COUNCIL ............................................ 78 SPONSORS

............................................................................................. 78

BIBLIOGRAPHY

..................................................................................... 79

ANNUAL REPORT 2005–2006

printed by Geerings of Ashford

ANNUAL REPORT 30

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

FIELDWORK Canterbury City Sites

7 3 B

100 0 500

500 m 1500 ft

A 4 2

6 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C

St Mildred’s Tannery The ‘Cycle Facility’, St George’s Lane Choir House, Cathedral Precincts Church Street St Paul’s Barton Court Grammar School, Longport H.M. Prison, Longport No. 14 Westgate Grove The House of Agnes, No. 71 St Dunstan’s Street Boots the Chemist, Nos 9–11 Mercery Lane and Nos 5–7 The Parade Nos 8–9 The Parade and 25–26 St Margaret’s Street The Church of St Gregory the Great

1St Mildred’s Tannery Simon Pratt

Preliminary archaeological investigations undertaken between 1999 and 2002 for the redevelopment of St Mildred’s Tannery (TR 145 577) were reported in Canterbury’s Archaeology 27 (Pratt and Sweetinburgh 2004). In June 2004 some additional contamination testing was monitored and, in September of that year, construction work began in earnest. The Trust set up office on the site where, save for a short break in early 2005 whilst no groundworks were under way, we have been conducting a complex watching brief ever since. Generally this is confirming or refining the conclusions of the preliminary investigations but there have been some surprises. The archaeological work is funded by the developers, Bellway Homes, and monitored by a steering committee which has representatives from Canterbury City Council, English Heritage, Bellway Homes, their architects, engineers and archaeological consultant (Professor Martin Biddle) and ourselves. Once again,

ANNUAL REPORT 30

grateful thanks are extended to all those involved in the project, on site and off, archaeologists and others. Particular gratitude though to those who suffered in the freezing, flooding trench boxes or the freezing, flooding, foul contamination remediation stage and most especially, with sincere admiration, to the real die-hards who slogged away in both: Tracey Smith, Ian Dixon and Paul Renn. The site comprises three sectors, the largest (A) lying west of the intramural branch of the Stour, another (B) between the Stour and Stour Street and the smallest (C), to the east of Stour Street. Construction began in Sector C and the first new occupants moved in around Easter 2005. Most of the standing buildings in Sector A were then demolished and the construction of the northernmost four blocks and adjoining roads begun. Groundworks for the next three blocks, near the middle of Sector A, are already underway. Sector B, where many of the existing

buildings are to be retained, is being left for the time being although a storm drain serving Sector C has been laid across it. At 3.5 hectares (8 acres), the overall site is comparable in size to the Whitefriars development and a large part of it overlies archaeological remains recognised by English Heritage as being of national significance. However, unlike Whitefriars, this largely residential development has no basements, cellars or underground parking and a very different archaeological strategy was adopted. This seeks to minimise damage to the remains by careful design, aiming to preserve them where they lie rather than staging large-scale excavations. All the new buildings rest on concrete piles, leaving the archaeology under the footprint of each building largely untouched. In collaboration with English Heritage, six pairs of boreholes have been sunk and ﬁtted with pipework

Auger key

in c . 18 th.

Rheims Way

St Peter's Roundabout

? gate

r Wate

Postern

Site of early building?

Haulway?

Known and conjectural Roman topography (auger data included, piling data omitted).

Ab an do ne d

Wall, levelling? metalling(s), floor(s) & occupation? River/ditch? OGS/cultivation/pit fill?/‘peat’

River, then reeds

k ac Bl

ne in St Mildred's Church

River, then floors

te r

ve R

St Ed m

Ford

?Street, then buildings?

Sector B

?Aisled buidling

St P

ro 's

rd Ha

Gr iff River, then reeds

Sector A

?Street, then St building? ree t

Baths?

ing

nW atl

London Gate

Stone/brick walls, timber walls/posts/piles (known) Walls/posts (conjectural) Metallings (known) Yards/roads/berm (conjectural) Interior floors/levelling (known) Building plots (conjectural) River/drains/moat (existing/known) River/drains/moat (conjectural) Water meadow/marshland, Meadow/ cultivation/pit/rampart (known) Rampart (conjectural) Open land (conjectural)

te r

roa

rS tre E et a

Bridge?

St ou

d? d? oa

4 ?P

n? ma Ro t os

Sector C

rli er r

General key

t ea

300 pedes Monetales

100m.

Temple precinct

Ford?

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CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

N 7.00 m OD

Berm?

6.00 m OD

As B' through to 10.00 m from wall

Blocking

Blocked Roman postern

Section key C'

Penetrable obstruction (level at base of horizontal line) Impenetrable obstruction (level at top of horizontal line) No impenetrable obstruction found (level at tip of chevron) Blocking

B' Timber upright

Rubble

C' Backfill

7.00 m OD

Postern Rubble?

6.00 m OD

Berm? Abutment?

Intramural face

Extramural face

and electronic sensors, which are providing information on the level, acidity, salinity and degree of oxygenation of the groundwater. These are all critical factors for the long term preservation of organic remains in situ. It is intended that data collection will continue for many years and contribute to a national assessment of the impact of this form of development on waterlogged archaeology. Where it proved impossible to keep individual lift-pits or stretches of drains and sewers entirely above the archaeology, a larger team was mobilised to monitor the machining of their upper parts and excavate the archaeological levels manually. Usually, at these depths, water poured in continually and steel trench- and pit-boxes were inserted to prevent cave-ins. At one time, five 3.5 m. long, 3 m. high, 1 m. wide boxes were in place end-to-end and Kent Fire and Rescue Service used them for a training exercise, pretending they formed a tunnel with a (dummy) casualty at the blind end. They eventually gave up trying to empty the trench with their single pump but sent in a fireman and firewoman anyway, to distressingly high-pitched squeals as the icy water gripped. From day to day our work is a continual merrygo-round of advising the engineers and architects where and what the archaeology is or is expected to be; monitoring groundworks (including piling) to minimise their impact whilst maximising data recovery; recovering, logging and analysing auger cores from selected pile positions; excavating and recording the few small areas where there is no sensible option but to cut foundation or service trenches into the remains; updating drawings and databases; and producing method statements, risk assessments and reports.

D' Gateway Metalling?

7.00 m OD

Roman wall truncated?

6.00 m OD

Berm? Post-Roman gateway (Halistane?)

Glacis? 7.00 m OD

Berm? 6.00 m OD

Possible robbing of stone block (approx.) Stone blocks, reused as post pads?

Locating the town wall

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Post-Roman re-entrant walls

Glacis

As some of the new buildings at the south-western end of Sector A are sited close to the expected line of the town wall, much effort and ingenuity was put into locating its exact course and searching for any towers. Not only was avoiding damage to it and to any associated structures an archaeological priority, but the wall would surely prove impossible to pile through and could well damage a very expensive piling rig. In this area archaeological levels lay beneath some 3–4 m. of tannery waste in unstable waterlogged soils so polluted that whenever the ground was disturbed (and, often, for days thereafter) ﬁve different meters were used to monitor the levels of eleven gases and wearing a respirator mask was compulsory. Total excavation was, therefore, avoided. As the overburden in each area was machined off and removed to the appropriate controlled-waste dump, the wall was seen to outcrop in three places. It was gradually pinned down by cleaning these exposures and cutting shallow transects, some by machine, others by hand. Leading geophysical surveyors GSB were also brought in. Their team sealed their own very expensive equipment in plastic cocoons, donned respirators and set to with ground penetrating radar, magnetometry and resistivity. As feared, the ubiquitous metallic scrap, high watertable and leachates from tannery waste (which had

5 metres

Plan key No impenetrable Impenetrable obstruction obstruction 8.00-8.50 m OD 7.00-7.95 m OD 6.50-6.95 m OD 6.00-6.45 m OD 5.00-5.95 m OD Exposed wall or foundation Interpolated wall or foundation

Post (and wattle?) revetted abutment

Town wall, southern area, probe plan and E-W proﬁles.

turned the ground into ‘electrolytic soup’) conspired against them. Though some potential archaeology was tentatively identiﬁed, nothing was clear enough to be relied upon without further investigation. Two small trenches were cut for this purpose: one found a post-Roman glacis (a bank between the wall and ditch) of compacted rubble but no walling, and the other only a rubble spread in a relatively clean sealant layer which had underlain the tanning waste. A larger trench was machined, down to the crest of the berm or glacis, along part of the wall’s extramural face and, for the remainder, a 3 m. long steel probe mounted on a mechanical

excavator was used to check along both sides and then along various transects, where initial probing, geophysics or exposed fabric suggested there might be remains.

Roman town wall and postern Though still very unclear, the results of the mechanical probing and geophysical survey suggest that there may be an earlier Roman building underlying part of the town wall and rampart. This is to be further explored at a later stage of the redevelopment. No towers or bastions were located though the wall is likely to have crossed an intramural branch of the

lagoon

Timber upright

Post-Roman wall

Flint

Town wall, postern and gateway.

Blocking

Roman face

Peat

Water level

Peat

Breach

Tile

Post-Roman face

Extramural photo collage (1m scales) and details (0.5m scales), looking east

+8.00m.OD

Roman wall

Level of inner passage floor detected by probing

Roman postern

Rubble

Dumped soil

Extramural elevation

Blocking wall

Dumped soil

Tannery

Wing walls detected by probing

Cobbled surface

Roman wall

Rampart?

Inner passage

Plan

Greensand

Post-Roman wall

Sandstone

Solid ?wall detected by probing

?Metalling detected by probing

Post-Roman gateway (Halistane?)

Recording the postern

Internal wall of Roman postern, looking south (1m scale)

Interpolated line of Roman wall

10 pedes Monetales

5 metres

Blocking wall

+8.00m.OD

Dislodged facing stones

?Roman wall

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CANTERBURYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

River Stour over a watergate. One transect exposed rendering made from a crushed-tile mortar on the extramural face of the wall, the ﬁrst time this has been seen at Canterbury. An area of metalling just inside the wall had probably served as a haulway during construction of the wall but might have been a later Roman(?) road using a reduced rampart to cross the marshy ground. Only two changes in the wall’s alignment were found, both almost imperceptible and both towards the southern end. Just north of these, the wall was interrupted by a contemporary opening with tile quoins on the extramural face and rebated interior faces of mortared ﬂints with double string-courses in tile. No single tile was fully exposed but they all appeared to be of the ‘Lydion’ type, which measured 1 pes Monetalis (civilian Roman foot, 1 p.M. ≈ 0.2955 m) by 1½ p.M. At its narrowest, between the external quoins, the opening measured only 1.475 m. (5 p.M.?), widening to 1.94 m. just within and to 1.99 m. across the rear of the town wall. The stubs of two wing walls also survived and probing indicated that they probably ran at least 3 m. back from the intramural face. These presumably revetted either side of a passageway through the rampart, probably with solid paving. So narrow is the newly-found opening that, if not a sluice-gate (see below), it might be more properly be termed a doorway or postern, rather than gateway.

Parallels Pedestrian passageways flanking main carriageways through the Roman walls at, for example, Verulamium and Colchester, vary between about 22/3 and 5 p.M. in width at their narrowest points (Wacher 1995, figs 28–9). At the Tannery, however, there was no evidence for an adjoining opening. The nearest parallel is Canterbury’s London Gate, reported as 2.44 m. (8½ p.M.?) between the wing walls but measuring perhaps 1.90 m. (6½ p.M.?) between the (missing) external quoins (Frere et al. 1982, 33, figs 6–7). This puts the London Gate in the smallest sizegrouping of gates from the main towns of Roman Britain (Wacher 1995, fig. 33). Broadly comparable sizes are found at Silchester’s c. A.D. 260–80 south-east gate, about 1.14 m. (4 p.M.?) wide at its narrowest point and mistaken for a sluice gate in the nineteenth century (Fulford 1984, 58, fig. 20) and at Lincoln’s fourth-century Saltergate postern, 1.83 m. (61/5 p.M.?) wide (Stocker 1985). The next largest size-range of conventional gates, which were probably the smallest negotiable by an ox-cart or wagon, is typified by Canterbury’s ?late third-century Queningate (exterior a little over 9 p.M. wide; Frere et al. 1982, 33, fig. 31), Silchester’s south-west and amphitheatre gates (erected c. A.D. 260–80, respectively about 9½ p.M. and 10 p.M. wide at their narrowest points: Wacher 1995, fig. 33) and Colchester’s second-century north-east gate (11 p.M. at its narrowest: Hull 1958, fig.13). A different class of opening (about 2.40 m. (8 1/8 p.M.?) wide at its narrowest point) was found at Winchester (Winch. Mus. Archive UNS88: Harrison 1989, 9; the width is misrepresented in Wacher 1995, fig. 33). Initially it was considered possible that it had been built as a conventional gate, later being fitted with a sluice (Frere 1989, 316–18). However, subsequent

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Canterbury: Tannery postern min. width ~ ~ 5 p.M.

Canterbury: London Gate, with flanking drain min. width ~ ~ 6½ p.M.

Winchester: north-east (water) gate min width ~ 8½ p.M.

Silchester: south-east (masonry) gate showing sockets from earlier timber gate min. width ~ ~ 4 p.M.

Canterbury: Queningate min. width ~ ~ 9 p.M.? Silchester: south-west gate min. width ~ ~ 9½ p.M.

Lincoln: Saltergate postern min. width ~ ~ 6½5 p.M.

Silchester: amphitheatre gate min. width ~ 10 p.M.

0 0

30 metres 100 p.M.

Comparison of small Romano-British town gates (after Winch. Mus. Archive UNS88; Fulford 1984, ﬁg.20; Wacher 1995, ﬁg.33) extramural faces to the top.

analysis suggests that, from the outset, it was designed to control the outﬂow of waste water into the River Itchen (Gommershall 1996). Key elements in this interpretation include an intentional five degree dip in the facing blocks and ﬂoorings, together with ‘offsets’ which might have protected and/or helped to secure the upstream ends of the open gate leaves. At the Tannery, the apparent absence of such elements and a consideration of relative levels militate against a similar interpretation.

Roman streets In Sector C, geo-technical augering and evaluation trenching had found traces of Roman clay floors. Subsequent augering of a few of the new pile positions identified the Roman floors extending over much of the site, with a more complex sequence towards the south-eastern end. Only a short stretch of a single service trench (for a gas pipe which had, unexpectedly, to be diverted beneath a ground-beam on the street frontage) was deep enough to expose Roman deposits in its base. It could hardly have been better located as it ran along what was probably a short corridor with a clay floor and slots or pads for timber wall plates or sills along either side and at each end. This was the first direct evidence for the alignment of any structures of this period in Sectors

B or C and roughly matched the more northerly (and later) of two conjectural lines for the Roman predecessor of this stretch of Stour Street. In the northern part of Sector A, a ground-beam trench exposed a small area of gravel metalling on the already established line of Roman Watling Street.

Roman bath-house? Augering confirmed the presence of Roman buildings and metallings over much of the northern part of Sector A and ground-beam trenches intersected two Roman walls a little south-west of Watling Street. The Roman building found in 1987 (Blockley 1987a; 1987b) was also partially re-exposed. Just to the south of the 1987 excavations, a main sewer trench crossed what was probably the south-west wall of the same building. A little farther to the south-west, the same sewer trench and an adjoining one for a storm drain exposed parts of a semicircular Roman apse wall about 0.89 m. (3 p.M.) thick and surviving to nearly 8.20 m. OD. This formed the south-eastern end of a room approximately 3.55 m. (12 p.M.?) wide. The apse wall was of mortared flint and probably had string courses of Lydion tile. To the east, a drain or hypocaust flue, walled with smaller tile fragments bonded with crushed-tile mortar, ran tangentially to

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

the faces and whole or broken tiles in the core. On all three sides, the uppermost surviving string course had been covered in trampled earth which had not been fully cleaned off before the next course of ﬂints was laid. This echoes the line of hobnailed boot prints recorded on the surviving crest of the outer wall of the building found in 1987 (to this day, new groundbeams are used as convenient walkways across a muddy or uneven site, though subsequent cleaning is usually more thorough). What may have been the robber trench for the fourth side was observed in 2001, but this was only 0.65 m. wide and more probably related to a separate or subsidiary structure. Inside the main walls, two massive upright timber piles were found, each roughly half a metre square. A hole in the ﬁnal surface gravel overlapping the western pile suggested they supported timber posts measuring about 0.30 m. (1 p.M.) square. As this pile projected above the sewer formation level, a tree surgeon was brought in to slice off its top, which was sent to the dendrochronology laboratory at the

Portion of apsidal wall with the partially excavated ﬂue or drain (foreground) already ﬂooding. Looking south-west. Scale 1 m.

?Beam scar

Watling Street

6.5

?Beam pad

29.5

Conjectural wall, beam or post 3.5

Known floor or metalling 4

9.5

12.5

153 ?Beam scar

114

Pile

Pile Yard?

Post-Roman?

12.5

3.5

Post-Roman?

River-sid e hard

?Beam pad

9.5

?Beam slot

85?

Offset

1m.sq.

Roman aisled building?

60 35

Leat

30 metres 100 p.M.

Street

9.5

Robber trench

27?

29?

Close to the river, short stretches of Roman walls were exposed in another main sewer trench, a shallower drain trench and in a lift-pit. These marked three sides of a large structure first identified in 1991, then assumed to represent an entire building rather than a single chamber (Pratt 1992). The north-western and south-eastern side walls had external offsets, probably just below floor level. The north-eastern end wall was about 1 m. thick (3½ p.M.?), at least along its central stretch. All the walls and footings were of mortared flint with string courses of Lydion tile. The tiles were laid in double thicknesses, using whole or half tiles along

?Beam scar

Known or robbed wall, pile or beam

Robber trench

the outside of the apse and there may have been a shallower spur, floored with tile fragments and flints, to the north-east. Cores recovered from a geotechnical borehole about 2.3 m. south of the external apex of the apse contained a poured mortar deposit, apparently a floor or floor-bedding, overlying a thick levelling deposit flecked with crushed-tile mortar. This sealed a ?drainage layer of broken Roman tiles which overlay an earlier, scorched tile floor (or string-course?), bedded on mortar, beyond which the augering was not continued. Other boreholes hit what were probably the south-western, northwestern and north-eastern walls of the same room and an uppermost clay floor or bedding layer near the presumed centre of the room. Nearer the room’s north-western end, 0.25 m. of ash and charcoal overlay a floor or wall of tile bedded in crushed-tile mortar. Some 5 m. north-west of the north-western wall, on the line of a previously conjectured side road, the uppermost of what may have been demolition spreads were more probably a series of mortar floors or beddings. Apses are more usually found on the outer walls of Roman buildings but in this case, given the presence of the drain/flue(s) and the results of the augering, there appears to have been another room to the south-east. The apsidal plan, drains/flue(s) and burnt material all suggest that this was a bath-house or, perhaps, the bath-wing of a larger structure.

Conjectural layout of Roman ?aisled building (measurements in pedes Monetales).

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

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95 p.M. (depending upon the number of bays) would leave it with an unusually low length/width ratio for an aisled building. Apparently erected rather late in the Roman sequence, with quite a high ﬂoor level (the uppermost being at about 7.70–7.80 m. OD), it may have continued in use after other buildings in the area had been abandoned to a rising watertable (perhaps around the end of the third century). Even so, the walls were probably razed to about 7.60–7.90 m. OD before the end of Roman rule.

Adjoining structures

North-west wall of the aisled building. Looking south-east. Scale 1 m.

University of Shefﬁeld. Unfortunately, though from an oak, it came from the upper part of the trunk and was too heavily knotted and fast-growing to be dated. It seems likely that such pieces were deliberately selected for piles, which needed no sophisticated carpentry, smoother-grained wood being retained for use above ground. A beam-slot and possible beam-pad may represent minor internal divisions or ﬁxtures but, like an area of scorching and, perhaps, the post-hole over the western pile, may pertain instead to a post-Roman structure. There are few signs of a coherent geometrical plan (beyond, perhaps, a mixture of 2½ p.M. and 3 p.M. modules) and it is not clear whether the walls and posts (or robbed-out piers) supported by the piles represented an aisled/basilical building or one with three or four wings ranged around a courtyard. Further augering, comparative work and analysis of load-bearing capacities may clarify the situation. Though the nave/aisle ratio of nearly 3:1 is very uncommon (about 2:1 being the norm), a wide nave has been suggested at Ash near Wrotham (Smith 1997, 40) and what is clearly another has recently been found at Hog Brook, near Deerton Street (Wilkinson 2005). The putative nave width of 32 p.M. would place the Canterbury building in the upper range of those known from Roman Britain whereas the estimated overall external length of 75, 85 or

ANNUAL REPORT 30

The aisled chamber was surrounded on all sides by separate or subsidiary structures. Its north-eastern wall was set about 7.40 m. back from the margin of Watling Street. Some, at least, of the intervening area had a (final) gravel and rubble surface ramping very gently up to 7.95 m. OD against the end wall. This area may have been roofed and was probably separated from the street by a timber-framed portico or corridor. To the south-east, the main hall was probably abutted by a timber-framed lean-to with a final floor level against the aisle wall at around 7.80 m. OD. This gave, across a narrow yard or street, onto a riverside hard. Two irregular flat stones sitting on the hard’s gravel surface but surrounded by silt were probably casual stepping-stones, at about 7.10 m. OD, easing access to the water’s edge. To the south-west, assuming the robbed wall was not the hall’s end wall, there was probably a more substantial structure, with a final floor level at about 7.55 m. OD. A wide leat, bottomed at around 6.85 m. OD, separated the robbed wall from a back street (or narrow yard?). The north-western wall was adjoined by what was probably a corridor, 9 p. M. wide internally. This was bounded to the north-west by another robber trench, some 3 p.M. wide, cut to below 7.30 m. OD and broadly contemporary with the razing of the main walls. Beyond this there was probably either a courtyard at a lower level or open ground. The implied size of the robbed footing seems excessive for such a narrow single-floored structure and it may have supported two or more storeys or even, perhaps, a colonnade. In the latter

case, the facade may have been of the porticuswith-pavilions type, described as ‘the badge of Romanisation in most of the European provinces’ (Smith 1997, 117).

Anglo-Saxon sanctuary A charter of A.D. 804 (Sawyer 1968, 160) granted much of the area to the nuns of Lyminge as a sanctuary and remains of brushwood trackways and a (boundary?) ditch found during the evaluation stage were tentatively attributed to this period (Pratt and Sweetinburgh 2004). About half of Sector C was blanketed with highly organic clay silts (termed, for convenience, ‘peat’ though not a true peat), some clearly formed in reed beds, others in drier but still very marshy conditions. The existence of a small island of relatively drier, cultivated land had also been conjectured, over what is now thought to be the southern end of the ?aisled Roman building. The two timber piles subsequently found within this building lay towards its centre and the more easterly one was sealed by the final phase of gravel surfacing between its walls. A dome-headed bronze pin, engraved with a cross and attributable to the mid Anglo-Saxon period, was recovered from within this gravel and one with a polyhedral-head from beneath a tile fragment lying on its surface. A thin layer of undisturbed peat sealed the razed south-eastern wall a little north-east of its mid-point. This peat was overlain by what were probably the poorly preserved remains of one of the brushwood trackways, at about 7.80 m. OD. On the riverward side of the trackway, the uppermost surviving Roman surface was also overlain by peat, but here it had been heavily disturbed, probably by trampling. There was no peat at this level on the track’s opposite side where, instead, what appeared to be a cultivated loam overlay Roman deposits. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the drier island was perhaps more extensive than previously thought and owed its existence to the higher floor level of, at least, the central and southern parts of the aisled Roman building. Following the latter’s razing, sufficient time elapsed for several inches of peat to develop over its less elevated portions before a

Roman timber pile under excavation.

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

brushwood trackway was built to the island across the lower marshland to its north. Parts of the island were then cultivated. The leat which had run past the south-western end of the latter probably continued in use, though narrowed, during the earlier stages of cultivation but was eventually clogged with peat which also extended over the adjoining Roman street. Over at least one part of the former building, a gravel metalling was laid down, though it is unknown whether it was an internal floor, external yard or trackway. The post-hole over the western Roman pile, a ?beam-slot, possible beam-pad, ?hearth and some of the final surfaces identified in the 1991 evaluation may also have belonged to this period. The two bronze pins associated with this metalling were of broadly ninth-century date and comparable with others from, for example, the convent at Minster-inSheppey (Slade 1993, passim; M. Gardiner in prep.); it is thus very tempting to identify this phase with the nuns’ sanctuary.

Re-modelled defences At some stage, probably in the Anglo-Saxon or early medieval period, the Roman postern was closed off with a thin blocking wall of mortared flint backed by rubble. At presumably the same time or somewhat later, a wider gateway was cut through the already partially collapsed or razed town wall, about 11 m. south of the postern. This gate, or its general area, was probably the Halistane (Holystone?) to which medieval documents make reference and beyond which lay an ordeal pit (Urry 1967, 198, map 2(b), sheet 8). Though the intramural and extramural quoins were missing, the interior was faced with large, roughly squared re-used greensand and yellow sandstone blocks set 3.10 m. apart. For at least 9 m. north of this new gate, the wall was rebuilt on a slightly different alignment but there was far more radical alteration towards the river. The Roman wall was cut away about 7.60 m. south of the new gate and replaced with a slightly narrower re-entrant wall on a trench-built footing of large packed flints. This ran back about 8.7 m. from the old intramural face before turning through about 110o and running another 10.4 m. to an abutment which would have projected from the contemporary river bank. Three surviving timber posts probably held back a plank or wattle revetting of the abutment’s packed flint core. Two large re-used blocks, one of greensand and the other of white limestone lay against or partially under the intramural face of the re-entrant wall and were probably of one build with it. What may have been the robbing of a third block was noted just to their west. These presumably supported a timber superstructure, most probably a walkway or steps. The town moat was either widened or diverted to run along the re-entrant and, at least near the external angle, was equipped with a steep glacis formed of tightly packed demolition rubble. The re-entrant on the Tannery site was probably matched by one on the opposite side of the river, where a willow-girt area of public space still separates the river and St Mildred’s churchyard, the latter being bounded to the west by an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century rebuild of the town wall. No direct dating evidence was found for any of the alterations to the defences. Only residual Roman

material was recovered from the rubble and soil behind the postern’s blocking wall and from the glacis. A few sherds of probably thirteenth-century pottery recovered next to the re-entrant’s abutment were of little use as they may have eroded from its core or have washed up against it. However, the absence of Caen stone and ragstone, re-use of Roman materials and lack of any known documentary reference to the creation of the re-entrants suggests an early date and a very rough terminus ante quem may be provided by a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century document.1 In it, Christ Church Priory granted to Richard the currier, for his lifetime, a tenement ‘between’ St Mildred’s churchyard and the city wall, with a great willow to the east. A condition of the tenure was his maintenance of a weir, perhaps between the ends of the re-entrants. Historically, the most probable occasions for blocking the postern would seem to be around the time of the establishment of the sanctuary in A.D. 804, the Danish siege of 1011 or the poorly documented late eleventh- or early twelfth-century replacement of the motte-and-bailey at Dane John with the stone castle near St Mildred’s church (Renn 1982, 71–3). The creation of the re-entrants may well be associated with the last of these, securing the royal castle’s ﬂank, or with slightly later work on the town walls and gates (Renn 1982, 74–5).

Medieval structures In Sector C, evaluation trenching had found part of a medieval or early post-medieval flint-walled building with clay floors. During construction work, several trenches for drains, sewers and ground-beams were cut a little into or bottomed on medieval and early post-medieval floors and walls near the street frontage. A ?late medieval well and a small ?early medieval hearth were also uncovered. Clay floors and flint walls exposed on the south-western margin of the site suggest that medieval structures survive at a higher level beneath Rosemary Lane car park. A new storm drain serving Sector C was cut across Stour Street and Sector B to discharge into the Stour. The trench for this exposed a mortared chalk wall on Sector B’s street frontage and a revetment of pointed but otherwise unworked wooden posts, associated with medieval pottery and cobblers’ scrap leather, a few metres back from the existing riverside wall.

Two small areas of clay floors were exposed by shallow groundworks in the northern part of Sector A: one was probably within an open-ended building and both were probably agricultural buildings belonging to the Franciscans who farmed the area from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Another medieval structure was identified in a deeper trench near the river. It was represented by one upright stake and horizontal poles around three sides of a rectangular or square area with a patchy clay floor within and without. The poles may have been the bottom course of a small wattle structure, such as a bin or pen. A glazed medieval pottery sherd was recovered from the surface of the deposit immediately under the clay. This structure was overlain by more substantial remains, probably of mid to late medieval date and, therefore, presumably associated with the friars. These consisted of a disturbed chalk floor and the footings, in mortared ragstone and flint, of two walls. The building thus represented stood close to the contemporary river but separated from it by a narrow strip of reclaimed ground with timber revetting tied back with horizontal logs or poles running back under the stone footing. Several medieval pottery sherds, including most of a thumbed base, came from the gravelly bedding for the floor and walls. The same deposit had also been used to form the reclaimed ground between the former river bank and the contemporary revetment. A little to the south, what may have been the same phase of revetting turned to jut into the river, perhaps forming a jetty or abutment.

Post-medieval period The exterior of the north-western ragstone and ﬂint wall was abutted by sandy dumped deposits similar to ones found within the robbing of the probably timber side wall of the open-ended structure and ﬁlling various shallow ditches (sometimes adjoined by tree roots and/or preserved fencing stakes) elsewhere in the area. These deposits generally contain late medieval or early Tudor material and it is likely that they represent post-Dissolution amalgamation of small plots into larger meadows or pastures. This probably dates to about 1539 when the King’s Receiver, Thomas Spylman, obtained the friary,2 1544 when he sold it (Cotton 1924, 63) or 1545 when he was signatory to an agreement rationalising land holdings here of the archbishop and Dean and Chapter.3

Sector C, ?early medieval hearth overlain by later clay ﬂoors. Looking north-west. Scale 1 m.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

From John Speed’s Canterbury, surveyed c.1605-1610.

From Braun & Hogenburg’s Canterbury, published c.1572.

From W. & H. Doidge’s Canterbury, published 1752.

From tracing of CCAL Map 123, surveyed c.1640.

The very schematic bird’s-eye view of Canterbury published by Braun and Hogenburg c. 1572 and copied by William Smith in 1588 (Clark 1883) contains no useful detail for the Tannery area: only the nucleus of the former friary is shown whilst a certainly anachronistic watergate crosses the Stour. John Speed’s 1605–1610 survey of Canterbury (included on his 1611 map of Kent)

and its derivatives are little better, though perhaps showing a rather confused representation of the two re-entrant walls by the river. These are far clearer in a map of c. 1640 held in the cathedral archives.4 A breach in the town wall, between the blocked postern and presumed Halistane Gate, was probably cut from both sides simultaneously and may be one of those made after the Christmas

Day riot of 1647 (Everitt 1960, 123–4, 140–1). By 1752, when W. and H. Doidge published the ﬁrst triangulated survey of the city, both gates and both re-entrants had been lost. 1. 2. 3. 4.

CCAL DCc ChAnt/C/899. Letters Hen. VIII, xiv, 1354.40. CCAL DCc/Register U fols 141–2. CCAL Map 123

2 The ‘Cycle Facility’, St George’s Lane Mark Houliston and Philip Mayne

Between November 2004 and July 2005 a watching brief and a minor excavation were undertaken during the construction of a proposed facility for cyclists at St George’s Lane (TR 1513 5757). Seven large pieces of worked stone were exposed. Two of these were mortared together and are likely to have been part of the town’s earliest Roman defences. They are tentatively interpreted as part of the northern side of a gateway. The rest could have been added at the same time, or later, and apparently represent the remains of an earlier structure, possibly a retaining wall associated with the rampart. The work was supervised by Philip Mayne and represented the ﬁnal episode of ﬁeldwork undertaken as part of the Whitefriars development.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Previous work in the area included a full-scale excavation conducted between November 2001 and March 2002 (CW12: Hicks and Houliston 2003, 7) also supervised by Philip Mayne, and two phases of evaluation work. During the excavation a 28 m. length of the primary Roman rampart and the foundations of a contemporary internal tower were exposed. Preliminary ceramic analysis dated these to c. A.D. 270–300. Approximately twenty-two phases of subsequent Roman and medieval structural changes were identiﬁed. In March 2005, during the course of the watching brief, a foundation trench was cut by machine through a 1 metre wide strip of intact Roman rampart deposits. The edges of two large worked

ragstone slabs set in yellowish brown mortar were revealed. Additional investigation uncovered four further ragstone slabs, one large block of corallian limestone, and several smaller pieces of ragstone rubble. These were not mortared together. The six slabs, the block, and the rubble pieces formed two horizontal layers, one laid above the other. The two in situ pieces were located at the eastern end of the lower row. As a result of these discoveries a minor excavation was undertaken. Its aims were to carefully record the stone pieces and to determine their relationships with the evidence recovered from the earlier excavation. None of the blocks were directly threatened by the proposed development. However, prudence required

od er n

Site of the earlier excavation

wa ll

on R jec om tu a re n d w & al ob l se rv M e

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

Internal tower

Side of the gate (conjectured)

Site of the minor excavation undertaken during the watching brief Junction of the wall & the battered base of the external tower, found by Dr F Jenkins

)

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External tower

)

(conjectured)

The in situ masonry and evidence for the ﬁrst defences The two ragstone slabs located at the eastern end of the lower row were the only two to be set in mortar. The easternmost was broken into two with its eastern portion fossilized within, and at the base of, the Roman wall. The western portion lay below the easternmost slab of the upper row. The break appears to have occurred at a later date when a length of the wall moved 0.20 m. eastwards towards

5m.

Modern wall & tower

the removal of one of them, and this is now in the safe keeping of Canterbury Museums. Subsequently, further watching brief work took place, particularly along the eastern edge of the development which ran up against the inside face of the Roman wall. The most important discoveries consisted of an in situ block of masonry located at the southern junction of the internal tower and the wall, several lengths of the inside face of the Roman wall, and a sequence of deposits relating to the construction of the tower.

the line of the extramural ditch. The combined piece would have measured 0.58 m. by at least 0.40 m. in plan and was 0.22 m. thick. The slab located to the west of this measured approximately 0.60 m. by 0.40 m. and was 0.24 m. thick. The upper surfaces of both pieces were ﬂat and they were covered by two thin spreads of poured mortar. The eastern edges of both stones were vertical with chamfered upper corners. They showed no signs of having been re-used. A length of the defensive wall and associated wall foundations ran along the east edge of the excavated area. The foundations appeared to be set within a construction cut, although this was not certain as it had been badly affected by the later movement of the wall. These appeared to continue northwards, under and beyond the perpendicular junction of the town wall and the southern wall of the tower. A block of extant masonry located above them in this location included the external junction of the wall and tower. This had clearly been formed as a single episode of construction. Further elements of the primary wall and its foundations were found during watching brief work undertaken to the north of the tower.

Despite the problems caused by the later movement of the wall eastwards, it is clear that the two slabs, the defensive wall, the tower, and all the associated foundations were built as part of an integrated phase of construction. The sequence of events making up this was complex, but thanks to careful work by the excavation and watching brief teams, is now well understood. In summary it was as follows: a ditch was cut for the main defensive wall forming a small mound of up-cast soils on its intramural side; foundations were laid to approximately ground level; a shallower ditch was cut for the internal tower through the up-cast material; this shallower ditch was ﬁlled with foundation deposits; the ﬁrst courses of superstructure, wall and tower, were laid; the two slabs may have been constructed at this time; rampart material was deposited against the northern and western sides of the tower (although no more than a small amount could have been deposited in the south); the level upper surface of this primary rampart acted as a construction platform for the second courses of wall and tower superstructure; a second layer of rampart material was added; this led to a third phase of wall and tower construction. In spite of this understanding, it remains unclear how the two slabs would have related to the wall and the tower. They clearly formed part of a structural feature that projected inwards from the wall at a point located 1.35 m. south of the tower, but until further excavation work is undertaken in the area, this must remain speculative. One clue comes from consideration of a small length of a Roman road excavated during one of the earlier Whitefriars excavations (CW64: Hicks and Houliston 2005, 4–7) and the line of modern Dover Street, which is known to have been in existence in the Anglo-Saxon period and could be earlier. If a route is postulated between the two, not only would it be on the same alignment as roads on the Roman street grid, but also it would pass just to the south of the two blocks. The blocks might therefore have formed part of the northern side of a gateway. It is interesting that only a small amount of rampart material (if any) can have been located between it and the tower. But this does not mitigate against the theory since the rampart could have been retained by a wall located to the west of the southern wall of the tower rather than one in line with the gate.

South wall of tower

Wall foundations Gap created by the movement of the wall eastwards The two in situ blocks and associated foundation material

The excavated area (foreground) looking north. Scale 1 m.

Four ragstone slabs and one large block of corallian limestone (second from left)

The two in situ blocks and two of the moulded ragstone pieces (above). Scales 0.50 m and 10 cm.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

An alternative theory is that the slabs constituted the southern side of a narrow postern gateway that was located against the southern side of the tower. This seems less likely however, as such a gate would have been very narrow, 1.25 m. or less, and the external ﬁnish of the south face of the tower, like the other faces, was quite crude and probably never intended to be exposed.

The other stones and deposits above them The four unmortared ragstone slabs, the large block of corallian limestone, and the smaller pieces of ragstone rubble were added against and above the in situ pieces. This appears to have occurred at a later date, after the removal of the postulated gate fabric that might have been bonded to the upper surfaces of the in situ pieces. Dark grey and orange-grey soils were laid above the unmortared stones. The same deposits abutted the inside face of the defensive wall and the southern wall of the tower, though it is less clear how they related to contemporary deposits located to the south of the tower, as these had not survived.

The most likely scenario seems to be that both the unmortared stones and the soils were deposited shortly after the removal of the postulated gate fabric. The four ragstone pieces appear to represent the remains of two or three larger stones. If set vertically in the ground these could have been used to retain the rampart. These larger stones would have been rough on one side, but worked on the other, with a vertical lower face, a slightly angled upper face, and a moulded top. The sequence suggests that soon after the gate was removed, and presumably blocked, the wall that had been used to retain the rampart was knocked down, and that new rampart soils were laid across these to ﬁll the gap. Presumably these soils ran all the way from the edge of the old rampart, around the southern face of the tower, and across the back of the blocked gateway to join with the old rampart deposits in the south. Alterations made to the defences during the Roman period included a heightening of the rampart bank (CW12: Hicks and Houliston 2003, 7) and the possible addition of an external tower discovered by Dr Frank Jenkins (Frere et al. 1982, 72) further to the south. If one assumes that the gate was similar in dimensions to the Queningate and the London

Gate, and the tower similar to that excavated by the Dane John gardens, then the northern edge of the tower would have been ﬂush with the southern edge of the gate. This tentatively suggests that the tower respected the position of the gate, and therefore that the gate was blocked after the tower had been constructed. Unfortunately, a useful date was not recovered from the ceramics amongst the soil deposits that overlay the slabs. The only stone not accounted for in this theory is the large block of corallian limestone. This measured approximately 0.65 m. by 0.88 m. and was 0.30 m. thick with straight and regular faces and a square socket in its centre. The stone may have come from a small quarry located near the village of Bazlinghen (Pas-de-Calais) about half way between Marquise and Ambleteuse (Bernard Worssam, pers. comm.). It seems likely that the block originally formed part of the core of a large monumental structure, though what this could have been is unclear. Perhaps, to conclude our rather speculative series of arguments to their conclusion, the block came from the external tower, and the gate was blocked at the same time that the tower was demolished.

3 Choir House, Cathedral Precincts Ben Found

In October 2005 the Trust undertook an evaluation in the grounds of Choir House within the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral (TR 1519 5796). The work was commissioned by the Dean and Chapter through their architects Purcell Miller Tritton in advance of proposed extension of the property. Two trenches were hand excavated within the gardens to the east of an existing extension and a third in the yard to the west of the main building. The evaluation exposed deposits possibly forming part of a fourteenthcentury monastic lodging and pentice close to the existing ground surface. Choir House is located to the north-east of the east end of the Cathedral, lying between the Deanery and Linacre House, an area which was formerly at the heart of the monastic establishment and occupied by the monk’s infirmary complex. To the south-east are the ruined remains of the south aisle of the Domus Infirmorum (Infirmary Hall) are upstanding along with substantial portions of the Capela Infirmorum (Infirmary Chapel) (Willis 1868, 52). Both the Infirmary Hall and Infirmary Chapel are shown on Prior Wibert’s ‘Waterworks Plan’ dated c. 1165 and were substantially rebuilt c. 1342 (Willis 1868, pl. 2; Scott Robertson 1882, 285). Choir House partially overlies the northern aisle of the Infirmary Hall. The area to the north of the Infirmary Hall is shown to be occupied in the twelfth century by the Coquina Infirmorum (kitchen of the infirmary) and Neccessarium Infirmorum (infirmary toilet block) (Willis 1868, pl. 2). Between c. 1260 and 1265 the Mensa Magistri Infirmatorii (Table Hall) was first constructed at right angles to the main Infirmary Hall. Table Hall was substantially rebuilt and refurbished in c. 1343 by Prior Hathbronde and substantial portions of this

ANNUAL REPORT 30

10.73m.OD

Wall 2016 10.42m.OD

10.41m.OD

?Post Pad 2017

10.34m.OD

1m. 10.74m.OD

Trench 2 plan.

building survive forming the rear portion of Choir House. The Table Hall acted as a special refectory for monks within the infirmary who were capable of leaving their chambers. These refurbishments are recorded in the treasurer’s accounts for the years 1342 to 1343 which record the construction of a new hall with a chamber (actually the refurbishment of the existing hall), other new chambers (seven were built for the infirm) and pentices (external wooden cloisters) (Willis 1868, 55; Sparks 2002, 1–3). The Priory of Christ Church Cathedral Canterbury was dissolved in the spring of 1540. The buildings and land were surrendered to the King and in April 1541 the ‘New Foundation’ came into being managed by a corporate body (the Dean and Chapter) composed of a Dean assisted by twelve prebendaries (a type of canon with a role in the administration of the cathedral), twelve minor canons, six preachers, a deacon and sub-deacon, twelve lay clerks or singing men, ten choir boys and their master (Sparks 1990, 21). Twelve stalls were created for the prebendaries within the choir and a commission appointed to assemble the new prebendaries to their stalls and assign possession of their houses (Sparks 1990, 26–27). The site of Choir House lies within the original stall II, initially allocated in a distribution list of 1546 to an Arthur Sentlanger. The aisle of the Infirmary Chapel within stall II had been demolished by c. 1680. At some point during the early seventeenth century the property was extended to the west, and extensive repairs made to the rest of the house in 1628. A formal garden was laid out to the east of the house. The gardens and the house were substantially altered and improved in 1828 when Canon Bayley demolished the range of rooms running across the northern end of the garden. At the same time the old Table Hall was

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

c.1540 Ba r

1165

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Prio r ’s Cam New era

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Table Hall

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The Green Court

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1897

2005

The Green Court

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(Remains of)

Tr.3

Linacre House

Tab le Hall

Stall IX

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Infirm

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kW alk Ruin

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Linacre House

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(Remains of)

Dean’s Garden

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s of

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Cha

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30m.

Topographical development of Choir House & Table Hall area.

Carved bone object found amongst demolition material in trench 1. Possibly part of a hand-held sundial.

Meister Omers

converted into separate rooms. Sometime before 1874 further alterations were made with the relocation of the kitchen and the formation of an enclosed yard to the west of the property. The property has been little altered since the late nineteenth century apart from the insertion of the Deanery’s garage and the construction of the existing extension to the rear of Table Hall (Linklater 2002, 1). The excavation of Trench 1 revealed an extensive deposit of demolition material consisting of crushed mortar, flint, brick and tile and containing both painted and unpainted wall plaster. The demolition material formed two distinct deposits and is believed to relate to the 1828 demolition of buildings in the garden. A small worked bone object was retrieved from the excavation of a sondage within this demolition deposit. The object, which was inscribed with oval lines and roman numerals is thought to possibly be the bevel from a small hand-held sundial. The demolition deposit was sealed by a series of soil deposits and cut by planting pits which are assumed to relate to the setting out of formal gardens in the nineteenth century. The excavation within Trench 2 exposed a short section of wall running north-north-east to southsouth-west with a possible post-pad close to the southern end of the wall. The wall measured some 0.20 m. in width and was constructed from small flint nodules and chalk blocks set in a pale to mid yellow sandy mortar. The pad was formed from peg-tiles set in a mortar very similar to that used within the wall. The wall probably represented a dwarf wall supporting a timber plate for a frame wall which was terminated by a principal post defined by the postpad. A later medieval date might be suggested based on the appearance of the wall and it could possibly relate to the range of chambers built c. 1343. To the southern end of the evaluation trench a compact level spread of brown-yellow sandy mortar was exposed. Whilst this deposit may represent a demolition deposit, the compact nature and regular northern edge of the deposit might suggest a basis for a flagged stone floor. The wall, post-pad and possible surface were sealed by a thin compact layer of demolition material itself sealed and cut by garden soils and planting pits associated with the gardens. Excavation in Trench 3 was limited due to the presence of a concrete covered active drain run. The trench extended from a wall separating the Deanery from Choir House. Beneath the wall deposit of demolition debris, comprising crushed pale yellowbuff mortar, white unpainted plaster, flint nodules, sandstone and Caen stone blocks, peg-tile, unfrogged brick and glazed and unglazed floor tile, was recorded. Excavation showed the base of the boundary wall to be just below the present ground surface and that the wall had no foundations or footings, being constructed directly upon the relatively loose demolition deposit. The work was directed by the Abby Guinness and the author and finds were processed by Jacqui Lawrence. Thanks are extended to Joanne Merry (Purcell Miller Tritton), Judith Roebuck (English Heritage), Richard Cross (Canterbury City Council) and the staff and pupils of Canterbury Cathedral Choir School.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

4 Church Street St Paul’s

Grant Shand and Sheila Sweetinburgh

Following evaluation of the site in 2002 (Shand 2003, 19), further work took place in April and May 2004 in Church Street St Paul’s (TR 1530 5771) prior to the construction of a new parish hall. The hall was to be built on the site of its recently demolished predecessor. The formation level for the new building was relatively shallow at 0.47 m. below the present street level, so there was little opportunity for excavation at depth, but post-demolition clearance of the site revealed walls and floors of earlier buildings surprisingly close to the surface and this together with the more extensive excavation allowed in service trenches, made it possible to collate sufﬁcient information to identify a sequence of domestic occupation on the site. A documentary survey for the area around Church Street was undertaken by Sheila Sweetinburgh, which with the excavated evidence provides an interesting account of this part of the parish of St Paul’s.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Church Street St Paul’s runs from Burgate in the city wall to ‘Longport’ (Langport) an area and early thoroughfare closely bound with the foundation and growth of St Augustine’s Abbey. Very little is known about Church Street St Paul’s prior to the twelfth century, though excavations have uncovered traces of a Roman street on a similar course (Pratt 1997). There is no documentary evidence to conﬁrm the founding date of St Paul’s Church, but it was in existence by c. 1200 (Urry 1967, 210–11). Examination of the church fabric suggests there is no in situ material earlier than about the middle of the thirteenth century when it is thought that the church was extensively rebuilt (Tatton-Brown 1994, 196). The 2004 excavations uncovered the scant remains of two probable medieval buildings and more extensive remains of a succession of later buildings up to Victorian times. No ﬁnds were made to help

date the buildings, so a chronology for them has been tentatively proposed based on constructional techniques, materials and stratigraphic relationships. Rebuilds and additions to the buildings testify to several phases of use associated with each. The earliest domestic occupation discovered on the site was represented by part of an intact peg-tile hearth discovered in Trench II of the 2002 evaluation. This was below the level reached in the main excavation and consequently its full extent remains unknown. The peg-tiles set on edge and bonded with clay were not excessively fire-blackened which suggested a short life-span or perhaps renewal of the hearth. The top of a chalk-lined well was located a short distance north-east of the hearth. It is likely that the well belonged to the same early phase of occupation as the hearth. Stratified deposits including clay floors sealed the hearth. The remains of several walls were recorded, that together formed a large building which is assumed to have extended south beyond the limits of the excavation (Building 1). At least three rooms were identified with a tentative fourth. The walls were generally c. 0.30 m. wide and between 0.30 m. and 0.60 m. high and were constructed from chalk blocks and knapped flint nodules bonded with a light brown gritty sandy mortar with chalky inclusions. Small patches of plaster rendering were visible on some surfaces, indicating internal faces. The walls were probably the remains of dwarf walls for the support of a timber frame. Fragments of clay floor were recorded in Room 1 and a more extensive sequence in Room 3. A similar series of clay floors with mortar bedding layers was recorded in Trench III of the 2002 evaluation possibly representing the fore quarters of a building contemporary with Building 1 but fronting Church Street (Building 2). This floor sequence was below the main excavation levels and could not be explored further. A flint-metalled surface located in Trench I to the west of Building 1 was assumed, on the basis of its level, to be an external yard or perhaps a passage leading from Church Street, contemporary with the first phase of use of Building 1. A second phase of use for Building 1 was suggested by the partial rebuilding of the main west wall and the dividing wall between Rooms 2 and 3. This rebuild was constructed from the same materials as the first phase walls, but with smaller chalk blocks and a paler lime rich mortar. The rebuilt sections of walling, in both cases, used the lower courses of original wall as foundations. A sequence of clay floors post-dating the first phase of floors was recorded in Room 3. A flint-metalled surface, discovered in evaluation Trench II, appeared to be of two phases with a thin layer of silt between the two. Like those recorded in Trench I, the later metallings probably represented an external yard or lane. Two short lengths of wall parallel to Church Street belonged to a two-roomed property fronting Church Street (Building 3). Much of the wall had been extensively removed by modern disturbance, but what survived was of large flint nodules bonded by

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

Church Street (St Paul’s)

Trench III

Room 1

Existing passage

Brick foundation of pre-war Parish Hall

St Paul’s Church

Room 2

Building 2

5m.

19th century well

Trench II

Courtyard surface

Early peg tile hearth

Room 2

Victorian tile

Room 3

Room 4

Building 1

Trench I

Room 1 Courtyard surface

a hard sandy yellow-grey mortar very different to the construction materials used in Building 1. Patches of clay floor survived either side of a wall dividing the two rooms. During the earlier part of the Victorian period the buildings on the site underwent various structural modifications or demolition. It was clear that some walls of both Building 1 and Building 3 were re-used as either walls or foundations in new structures and there was also some new building. In Building 3 there were two additional walls and in one room the scars of a tiled floor were recorded and in another the remains of a possible brick floor. A parish hall was built on the site before the Second World War and demolition debris from the early Victorian structures covered the site. As was stated at the outset, the shallow depth of excavation afforded by the proposed development restricted the examination of the medieval and earlier levels of the site. However, a plan was produced which with historical documentary records adds something

Phase I wall Phase II wall Clay floors

to our understanding of the use and occupation of land belonging to St Paul’s since the medieval period. St Paul’s Church is ﬁrst mentioned c. 1200 under the possession of St Augustine’s Abbey. The loss of much of the abbey’s archive at the time of the Reformation has made it difﬁcult to understand occupation and land use in this Canterbury suburb prior to this time, though the abbey was not the only ecclesiastical landholder in Church Street. By c. 1166 Christ Church Priory seems to have acquired a few plots in the street, though unfortunately it is not possible to trace these Christ Church holdings in the late medieval priory rentals. During the time when Roger II of Chichester was abbot of St Augustine’s (A.D. 1253–73) his friend Hamo Doge was rector of St Paul’s. In 1264 Hamo Doge established a chantry at his residence in what had been known as ‘New Street’ which in time became known as Chantry Lane. The fourteenth-century chronicler at St Augustine’s Abbey, William Thorne, says that Doge ordained his chantry for his own soul, his parent’s soul and the soul of his close friend Roger

of Chichester (Davis 1934, 246). Doge also ordained two chaplains, one to minister at the altar of St John at St Paul’s church and the other in the chapel dedicated to St Mary at his chantry in New Street. Provision was also made to pass on offerings made to Doge’s chantry to St Paul’s. Perhaps money gained from donations from the chantry was put towards the thirteenth-century rebuild at St Paul’s. In 1544 the Reverend John Clerk at St Paul’s received a 500 year lease of two tenements abutting the way to the parsonage (between the tenements and the east end of the church) and the land behind them in front of the parsonage/vicarage. In the mid sixteenth century John Clerk had enclosed a kitchen and there was a well nearby.1 It is quite possible that the peg-tile hearth located during the evaluation belonged to this kitchen and its nearby well, and that the clay floors of the building fronting the street relate to property owned by John Clerk. Braun and Hogenburg’s map of the city in 1572, while not strictly accurate gives an impression of the area and depicts St Paul’s church with properties to the east not adjoining the church. This would seem to suggest a passage between the church and the tenements on the street. Metallings recorded during the evaluation may relate to such a passage. To the east of the tenements was a messuage (dwelling house with adjacent buildings and curtilage) held by John Beedle at some time in the mid sixteenth century.2 By the 1580s the land held by John Clerk was rented to Thomas Lymiter and his wife at an annual rent of 16d. and by this date the adjacent messuage was in the hands of John Wydhoppe.3 Lymiter, a successful Canterbury alderman, acquired Wydhoppe’s messuage and the adjoining property. It is possible that these formed his dwelling mentioned in his will as the house was said to have included a hall, a parlour, a great chamber, an inner chamber, a garret, a kitchen and bolting house. It is possible that the walls and floors observed over the peg-tile hearth during the excavations represent Lymiter’s modifications to Clerk’s properties. The four rooms belonging to the second phase of activity in Building 1 might be any of the mentioned rooms, but the north wall of Room 1 was of considerable length (at least 10 m.) and might belong to the hall or great chamber. Lymiter appears to have held the two tenements and land until 1680 when John Adkinson took the tenancy.4 Adkinson, a wealthy Canterbury citizen, was in a position to aid his poor neighbours in the parish and set up the Adkinson’s Charity. This was two almshouses, the two tenements in front of the vicarage, for the use of poor widows from the parish. The walls and clay floors of Building 3 were presumed to be of later medieval date and might be the westernmost of these tenements. When Adkinson made his will he appointed his wife Mary executor of his will. At this time John Glover and John Penn were living there, and they were allowed to stay until the death of Mary. Adkinson died in 1711, and Mary administered her late husband’s estate. Following Mary’s death, two widows, Jane Rider and Elizabeth Hosier, were each to have the occupancy of a tenement rent free provided they tended to any repairs. After Hosier, the next widow

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

was Elizabeth Penn. To ensure the continuation of his charity Adkinson intended that it should be administered by the parson, church wardens and overseers of the poor for St Paul’s parish. Behind the vicarage in the sixteenth century and between it and a passageway from Ivy Lane was a piece of garden and an orchard, it too having belonged to St Augustine’s Abbey before it was purchased by the corporation.5 The area of the orchard seems to have shrunk by the mid eighteenth century. The site fronting Church Street does not appear to have changed, the two almshouses were still there each with its own backyard, and a shared water supply from a pump located to the rear and on the corner of the passageway between the tenements and the church, but the vicarage was called ‘Glebe Cottages’ in 1844. In 1851 there were considerable alterations. That year the churchwardens negotiated changes to Adkinson’s Charity as they wished to release the site in Church Street St Paul’s for other purposes. This was partly due to the state of the two tenements (under one roof) which had been seriously neglected in the early part of the nineteenth century. Even though the churchwardens had repaired the house in 1841 and let it to two new widows, it was again in need of repair a decade later, hardly surprising because the widows concerned were 75 and 87 years of age. Rather than spend more money on it the church wardens decided to acquire a messuage in nearby Love Lane, using the £100 they had received from the government for the use of the Church Street site. At this time the Reverend William Chesshyre was at

St Paul’s and funded major restoration building and restoration works at the church between 1847 and 1856. He commissioned a new south aisle which allowed the original aisle to become the new nave. Vestries were also added to the new south aisle and refacing of the main north chancel wall and the upper stages of the tower were also undertaken. When this work was completed the church was reconsecrated by the archbishop. With Reverend Chesshyre’s cooperation, a single-storey brick-built school was constructed on the old vicarage garden ground at the rear of the site. The school was one of a number of parish schools in Canterbury designed to provide basic education and moral teaching for the young children of poor parishioners who could not afford to send their children to private establishments. A ﬂint and brick wall recorded during the excavation extending southwards beyond the site was probably associated with the school. Over the next half of the century the site was developed still further and in 1889 a parish hall was built where the Adkinson tenements had stood.6 By this time the school had also been enlarged and according to a set of plans dated 1870 the original school house had become the core of the girl’s school with the boys and the infants being taught in a new brick-built school house to the west of the site. In the early twentieth century plans to reorganise and enlarge many of Canterbury’s church schools were underway and in 1914 alterations began at St Paul’s at a cost of over £1,500. By this time there were almost 300 pupils at the school and the extensions were considered insufﬁcient. War damage brought

the opportunity to further extend the school, and in 1954 the corporation gave permission to erect a dining hall on the site of the parish hall which had burnt down a decade earlier in the war. Surprisingly the church escaped major damage, but the west and east stained-glass windows were blown in. The brick footings that encased much of the site probably belonged to the earlier parish hall and not the 1954 dining hall. The mortar bonding was a coarse sandy lime mixture with chalky inclusions and was vastly different from the mortar bonding on the recently demolished dining hall. However it is likely that the original foundations were re-used as foundations for the dining hall. In the 1960s the school was sold and the proprietor of the Invicta Motor Engineering Works bought the site. He wanted access to his yard from Church Street St Paul’s using the old passageway and surrounding land. Initially the Diocesan Board of Education agreed to his proposal seemingly without consulting the P.C.C. It was only after the Reverend Perry received a letter outlining the sale that action was taken to retrieve the site for the parish. As a result the P.C.C. and the Diocesan Board bought back the passageway and approach to the vestry, including part of the school playground, and it is this area which has now been developed for the continuing use of the parish. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

CKS, PRC 17/30, f.142. CCAL CC/PD5, pp.31, 489. CCAL CC/FA19, f.194v. CCAL CC/PD5, p. 489. CCAL CC/FA19, f.194v; CC/PA2, p. 18. CCAL U3/81/25/26.

5 Barton Court Grammar School, Longport During June 2005 a watching brief was maintained during groundworks prior to the construction of a new classroom at Barton Court Grammar School (TR 1569 5759). The school is situated beside the line of the Canterbury to Richborough Roman road and directly opposite the World Heritage site of St Augustine’s Abbey and St Martin’s Church. The ‘barton’ was the home farm of the abbey. Barton Court was where the manorial and liberty courts were held and where abbey tenants from outlying manors brought their produce (Tatton-Brown 1997, 133–5). The medieval Barton Court building was replaced in the mid eighteenth century by the Georgian house which now forms part of the school, but the ‘Court Sole’ pond survives. The 2005 work was the most recent in a series of archaeological watching briefs and small evaluations within the grounds of the school during improvements to its buildings and surrounding grounds. In March 2001 an evaluation trench was excavated in the car park immediately to the north of the Georgian mansion (Diack 2001). Despite the ground in this general area being heavily truncated by nineteenthcentury garden improvements and modern services, a series of undeﬁned archaeological features dated between 1050 and 1225 was encountered. A further series of similar dated features was encountered during construction of an extension in the south-east corner of the school site in November 2001 (Diack

ANNUAL REPORT 30

H.M.P.Canterbury Longport Smith’s Almshouses

2001 Evaluation trench

Barton Court Grammar School

Barton Approx. position of Court Roman cremation burial

Position of 2002 watching brief

Pond

1996 Test pit locations

Site location

1996 Test pit location

Position of 2001 watching brief

Kent Institute of Art and Design

50m.

Based on the Ordnance Survey's 1:1250 map with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, © Crown Copyright. Licence No. AL100021009

Andrew Linklater

Extract from the modern Ordnance Survey map, showing the position of the site in relation to the present school buildings.

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

2m.

service tre nch

Existing school building foundations

Barton Court pond overflow pipe

Redundant

Service diversion trench

Existing school building

Beam and pad foundations for new extension

Existing school building

Pit 2

Modern service trench

Pit 1

limits and though Pit 2 was located centrally beneath the new building’s proposed footprint, it had been disturbed by recent services. All four features shared similar characteristics with almost vertical sides. Pit 3 was possibly rectangular in plan. Pits 1, 2 and 4 were square. Each was backﬁlled with a similar series of deposits consisting of a sequence of laminated mid grey and mid-pale greenish-grey silty sandy clays containing occasional small pieces of carbon, oyster shell and animal bones. Only two of the four pits produced datable pottery. Sherds from Pit 4 dated to 1025–1125 and those from Pit 2 to 1175–1250. Unfortunately the exact nature of the four pits remains unknown due to the limited nature of their inspection, but the identification of similar features of a comparable date in nearby areas of the school may suggest a common function associated with the Court Lodge Farm. It is temping to suggest that they might all have had an agricultural function associated with the ‘Great Stone Barn’, whose position is believed to lie within 10 metres north of this site First mentioned in surviving documents of the mid thirteenth century as the demesne farm with lands covering 475 acres and 1 rood (192 hectares), by the ﬁfteenth century Barton Court farm is described as consisting of a Court Lodge with a series of barns, granaries and other farm structures positioned around the ‘Court Sole’ pond. The thirteenth-century documents mention two stone barns, the smaller

Pit 4 Pit 3

Detail plan showing the position of the Pits 1-4 in relation to the new beam and pad foundation and the existing school building and service trenches (scale 1:100).

2003, 17–18). There, foundation trenches revealed evidence of moderately-sized features cutting into the natural Chalk subsoil to a depth of at least 1.60 m. below the present ground surface. Unfortunately due to the limited nature of the foundation trenches, the full dimensions of this group of features could not be ascertained except to say that they extended over an area of at least 4.50 m. square. In August 2002, a watching brief during the construction of a new music room beside the pond, revealed evidence of a post-medieval brick ﬂoor relating to a brick-lined tank or culvert possibly associated with the pond. During the current watching brief, 28 metres of foundation trenching, interspersed with a series of regularly spaced 1.20 m. square foundation pits, was excavated across an area measuring approximately 8.50 x 11 m. Four pits, all of which cut into the underlying natural chalk, were recorded in the trenches towards the southern end of the site. The earliest feature, based on its alignment and the fact that it was truncated by Pit 1, appeared to be Pit 3. The remaining features (Pits 1, 2 and 4) were all on a similar north-west by south-east alignment suggesting they were perhaps of a common date and function. Full dimensions could only be obtained for Pit 1. Pit 4 extended beyond the new foundation

‘Great Stone Barn’

Extract from a map of Canterbury (A.D. 1640), showing the position of the ‘Great Stone Barn’ in the grounds of Barton Court.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

situated between Longport and the pond, whilst the other, commonly known as the ‘Great Stone Barn’ was located on the other side of the farm grounds immediately to the south of the pond. A map of the mid sixteenth century shows the two barns merged into the collection of haphazardly illustrated structures representing the farm, situated beside the main road. On the c. 1640 coloured map of Canterbury, what appears to be ‘Great Stone Barn’ is represented as a prominent feature in the local landscape, though this could possibly be a representation of the Court Lodge house itself. During the mid eighteenth century, a hand-drawn parish map clearly shows the ‘Great Stone Barn’ separate from the main house, whilst the smaller barn, is not illustrated. Successive maps from the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century depict the changing layout of relict farm buildings. Thanks are extended to Lee Evans Partnership who commissioned the work, to the client, Barton Court Grammar School and to Mr M. Sayer of W.W. Martin and his staff for their co-operation during the work on site.

Barton Court ‘Great Stone Barn’

Extract from a map of Canterbury (A.D. 1768), showing the position of the ‘Great Stone Barn’ in the grounds of Barton Court.

6 H.M. Prison, Longport Andrew Linklater

es ad

rr Te

in’s

art

rth

M St

Below ground passage

Old Sessions House

HM Prison

Service trenches Chapel yard Ditch

Heading shaft

157700m.

Longport

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Metalled road surface

Test area

Assume d line of Ro man Road

Barton Court Grammar School

50m.

615800m.

Masonry wall

615700m.

Based on the Ordnance Survey's 1:1250 map with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, © Crown Copyright. Licence No. AL100021009

157800m.

Throughout 2005 the Trust maintained a watching brief during the first part of a three- phase upgrading of buildings and facilities at the prison (TR 1657 1577). Located on the north side of Longport, the prison grounds were initially annexed from land that once formed part of the outer precinct gardens of St Augustine’s Abbey (S.A.M. Kent 49). Sandwiched between the ruins of the abbey and St Martin’s Church, the land on which the prison sits was laid out as ornate gardens following the Dissolution, but was transformed into hop-fields by at least the mid eighteenth century (as can be seen on the c. 1640 and 1768 maps above). St Augustine’s Gaol, as it was first known, opened in 1808 with a Sessions House adjoining immediately to the west. The prison buildings originally consisted of a main east–west aligned range with a pair of northern projecting wings. There was a high perimeter wall with an entrance via a single, simply decorated arched gateway and a gatehouse range against its interior face. A subterranean passage linked the Sessions House and the prison. As pressure for accommodation increased, further buildings infilled the original open courtyards. It was not until the mid twentieth century that a triangular plot of land to the north was acquired, virtually doubling the overall prison area and this was soon filled with a series of largely prefabricated concrete structures. The replacement of a small building in Chapel Yard necessitated the rerouting of services. Examination of the service trenches and foundations for the new structure revealed that the underlying natural brickearth had been quarried to a depth of approximately 1.30 m. below present ground surface. The resulting sizable depression had then been partially infilled with poor quality mixed brickearth and was sealed with a series

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

of laminated deposits of crushed mortar and stone rubble interspersed with occasional small fragments of Roman brick and tile. The extensive nature of this quarrying was demonstrated during the excavation of a series of test pits and trenches across a small grassed garden area immediately in front of the main prison entrance. Initially excavated to examine the prospect of surviving archaeological features or deposits immediately to the north of the assumed alignment of the Roman road, it instead only revealed the continuation of the brickearth quarrying beyond the limits of the prison’s walled boundary. The fill was similar to that recorded at the Chapel Yard, but this time the rubble included a small corpus of large Roman tiles with both mortar and opus signinum adhering to them. In addition to this there were several pieces of mortared stonework with a lime plaster facing surviving on them. Similar stone and mortar rubble is often found on archaeological sites in Canterbury, but it is interesting here because the prison and the Sessions House were constructed at around the time the first Kent and Canterbury Hospital was being built nearby in Longport. Though the prison was first opened in 1808 (a date recorded in Roman numerals above the main

gate), its foundation stone was laid in 1797, four years after work began at the hospital. There was a large basement beneath the main hospital building, excavated within the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey and this would have provided a ready source of stone and mortar rubble for construction projects nearby. Evidence for the Roman road was uncovered during the excavation of a service heading shaft in a grassed area on the opposite side of the prison’s main entrance. The northern edge of the road, consisting of a thin wedged shape layer of compacted ﬂint gravel approximately 1.60 m. below the modern ground surface and an east–west aligned ditch. Laid directly over the natural brickearth, the road gravels as well as the northern side ditch were sealed by a 0.15 m. thick deposit of soils that contained extensive amounts of pottery fragments dating from between the late ﬁrst through to the mid second century. This covering of domestic debris suggests that the road line either shifted southwards or diminished in width over time. Further evidence of the road’s alignment was revealed during casual observations of an unfunded machine excavated service trench along the centre of Longport’s northern public footpath. Along most of its length the trench only revealed the modern path

bedding, but for a 28 m. length in front of the prison a thick deposit of compacted laminated ﬂint gravels was recorded immediately beneath the pavement levels. Though no datable evidence was recovered during its brief exposure, its location in the exact position above the same assumed alignment and the method of its construction, suggest a Roman origin. A further discovery beneath the footpath along this portion of service trench was a section of north– south aligned masonry wall opposite the entrance to Barton Court Grammar School. Cutting into the top of the natural brickearth and extending beyond the base of the trench, it measured approximately 0.50 m. wide and was formed using only pieces of fractured Thanet Beds stone bonded with coarse gritty lime mortar. The location of this wall immediately south of the assumed Roman road is interesting. The modern alignment of Longport was created during expansion of St Augustine’s Abbey immediately prior to the Norman Conquest, which would suggest that this section of masonry pre-dates this alignment. Our thanks are extended to H.M. Prison Services for funding this continuing project. Further thanks are extended to the staff of Crispin and Borst for their interest and co-operation during the work.

7 No. 14 Westgate Grove Crispin Jarman

The Old Vine House (site of)

Unphased walls observed in base of construction trench

Trench cut & recorded Awaits cutting/excavation Area reduced by hand

Peg tile hearth

Clay floor of Phase 2 building Late clay floor of Phase 2 building

Clay floor of Phase 1 building

Late cobbled surface associated with alterations to Phase 2 building Inserted wall

Limit of clay floor

Nos.16-24

Clay floor

No.14

Wes 0

Quern stone

10m.

tgat

Gro

No.12

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

In August 2005 the Trust was requested to undertake a watching brief during groundworks for an extension to No. 14 Westgate Grove. The extension ran from the north-east end of the house along the north-east side of the garden. Groundworks commenced prior to the arrival of an archaeologist and inspection of these indicated the presence of an earlier building within the area of the extension and after discussion with the architect and City Council archaeological adviser, it was decided that archaeological excavation of deposits within the area of impact was required. This meant hand-reduction of levels to below the base of the ﬂoor slabs and the hand-cutting of the foundation trenches. The groundworks were conducted by Oatmor Harris and the investigation was funded by the owner, Mr Andrew Clague. Thanks are extended to both parties for their co-operation. The existing brick building is of eighteenth-century date and was used as a malthouse before being converted to residential use. The building sits at the south-west end of a timber-framed row of buildings dating between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, facing the River Stour. The adjacent building (No. 12) appears to be of eighteenth-century date. To the east, set forward into the road, is a row of cottages of nineteenth-century appearance. The site of Westgate Mill, which perhaps dated to the sixteenth century, lies opposite these cottages. The excavation revealed parts of at least two phases of earlier building at the south-east end of the new wing, extending under the existing house. To the north-west the formation level for the new structure was too shallow to allow excavation. However observation of the foundation cut indicated further structural elements lay beneath the centre of the extension. The foundations of a further structure

were observed during the cutting of a service trench along the south-west side of the garden. The first phase of building (Building 1) at the front of the plot was only observed in the base and sides of the foundation trenches and later cuts, where sections of masonry and clay floor were exposed; reconstruction of this building is therefore difficult. The building appears to have been timber framed with flint and chalk dwarf walls. Two rooms were observed, possibly abutting No. 12, one facing the street frontage and one to the rear. The dividing wall between the rooms lay c. 5 m. from the street frontage and the rear room extended back at least another 3 m.. The width of these rooms was at least 5 m. and may have been around 7 m.. To the southeast of these rooms the presence of a clay floor indicated either another property or an extension to this building – either a passageway or a single large room, possibly a hall. Dating evidence for this building was limited to a single sherd of Tyler Hill ware (c. A.D. 1375–1525) found in packing beneath a dwarf wall. This suggests the building to be of no earlier date than the fifteenth century, though it is more probably of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century date. The clay floors of this building showed several areas of repair, but only a single layer was present, perhaps suggesting a short life span. The clay floors were sealed beneath a 250 mm. thick deposit of silt. The silt was very organic in nature and it is suspected that it represents more than one episode of flooding. Whether this led to the building being abandoned or whether the building had already fallen into disrepair is unclear, but after the deposition of this material the building on the plot was remodelled. The new building (Building 2), if it was such, only occupied the north-east end of the plot, re-using the

side wall of the rooms of the earlier building as its south-west limit. To the north-east it was separated, at ground level at least, from No. 12 by a 2.50 m. wide passage. The building was again divided into front and rear rooms by a wall, which lay on a slightly different alignment to that dividing the earlier building. The width of the building, assuming the passage to the north-east was not covered, was c. 4.50 m. and its depth in excess of 8 m. from the street front. A peg tile hearth, 1.2 m long and over 0.80 m. wide had been constructed roughly in the centre of the rear room. The second building may have been more long lived than the earlier one, as there is evidence for more floors and for alterations to its layout. The most significant of these alterations appears to have been the blocking of the passage between the building and No 12, by the construction of a wall between them on roughly the same alignment as the wall dividing the front and rear rooms. The presence of a clay floor to the front and flint cobbling to the rear indicates the creation of a new room facing the street with a yard area remaining to the back. A third building (Building 3) was observed in the service trench along the south-west side of the garden. The building was represented by parallel, narrow flint walls aligned south-west to north-east and lying c. 4.50 m. apart. The orientation of the long axis of this building could not be determined. At least one clay floor with occupation trample lying on it survived within the building. This building was sealed by over 1 m. of overburden, most of it modern, and it was not possible to determine a link between it and the sequence observed for Buildings 1 and 2. Building 3 does however appear to be relatively early, either late medieval or early post-medieval.

8 The House of Agnes, No. 71 St Dunstan’s Street

ANNUAL REPORT 30

dW es t Sta tio nR oa 158200m.

House of Agnes

Site location

sta

n’s

St re

rth

West Gate

rov ha

614500m.

Lin

158100m.

614600m.

La ne

St .D

614400m.

During July and September 2005, an archaeological watching brief was maintained during the replacement of an existing extension at the rear of the ‘House of Agnes’ in St Dunstan’s Street (TR 1446 5817) as part of an extensive refurbishment of the property. The monitoring of a new foundation trench associated with the replacement of the extension formed the focus of the watching brief. Evidence for activity during the Roman period, was recorded in the form of a series of rubbish or cess pits cutting into the top of the underlying natural brickearth. Though perhaps of limited significance, these features imply the presence of domestic structures nearby. Most observations of Roman activity in St Dunstan’s relate either to an extensive Roman cemetery (Bennett 1987, 56–73; Diack 2003b), or to industrial activity in the extramural suburbs closer to the town (Bennett 1991a; Scott 2003, 18–19), though evidence for a Roman street was found in a previous evaluation to the rear of the House of Agnes in 1991 (Bennett 1991b). The Roman features were sealed by a mixed deposit that contained late Saxon material, itself sealed by a series of clay floors and occupational deposits. These floors and the remnants of a wall belonged to a timber-

From Ordnance Survey's 1:1250 map with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, © Crown Copyright. Licence No. AL100021009

Andrew Linklater

a stg

e W

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY CITY SITES

framed structure which appears to pre-date the present property. It was during the rapid excavation of the sequence of clay floors that one of the most important archaeological finds for very many years in Canterbury was made. The rarity and importance of this object means that it is still undergoing detailed examination and conservation and will be reported more comprehensively at a later date. However, the limited research that has taken place has shown the object to be a type of scientific instrument known as an astrolabic quadrant. The function of this object remains uncertain at the time of writing (October 2006). Astrolabic quandrants were used for many and varied purposes, navigation, land surveying and time keeping for the abeyance of strict prayer timetables being amongst them. Certainly its ability to aid the user in calculating latitude within the northern hemisphere would constitute a function that would aid in all the above purposes, though earlier Islamic texts refer to a primary use for time keeping via the constant movement of the sun and the stars. The Canterbury astrolabe consists of a flat copper alloy plate cut to a quarter circle. An x-ray photograph revealed that one side is engraved with degree scales around its outer edges, whilst spanning across its surface is a series of varying curves, some containing the names of the zodiac star constellations. On the opposite side is a series of concentric circles divided into segments by a series of radial spokes which subdivide the circles into a series of individual fields, each containing numerals and symbols either singly or in groups. This is surmounted centrally by a rotating figure of a bird with outstretched wings, each wing appearing to act as a pointer to the numerals and symbols in the surrounding segmented circle. Though not fully understood at this time the object would appear to be a simple computing device with the user rotating the bird so that the tip of one of its wings points towards

one of the symbol groups in the outer circle. The tip of the other wing would then point to a corresponding symbol in the inner circle. A second interesting ﬁnd was made beneath the concrete ﬂoor of the rear extension. This was the possible remains of a pottery kiln. A circular brick structure with a burnt clay base was recorded, whilst a considerable amount of pottery fragments were recovered from a large pit revealed in a nearby new service trench. Fragments of ‘red ware’ chamber pots, jars and charger plates (dating to between

c.1550/1575–1700/1725) all appear to represent wasters from a kiln. The discovery of this possible kiln and its waste material is of some signiﬁcance for the study of the development of post-medieval potteries in Canterbury after the decline of the Tyler Hill pottery industry. We would like to thank Messrs W. Poon and D. Shultz of Fusion Ltd for commissioning and funding our work at the House of Agnes and for their continued interest in the project.

Above: obverse and reverse of the object before conservation and, below, x-ray photograph.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY DISTRICT SITES

Canterbury District Sites 9 HERNE BAY WHITSTABLE

GREA TS TO U

CANTERBURY

1 5

0 0

5 miles 10 kms

9 Hillborough Farm, Reculver Road, Herne Bay

9 Hillborough Farm, Reculver Road, Herne Bay Richard Helm

In early June 2005 the Trust excavated twenty evaluation trenches on land at Hillborough Farm, Reculver Road, Herne Bay (NGR 62092 16796). The work was commissioned by Kitewood Estates Ltd prior to development of the site for residential housing. The development area is located in the settlement of Hillborough within the parish of Reculver. It consists of Hillborough Farm and its surrounding fields situated on a flat plateau of relatively high ground with an elevation of just over 30 m. OD. The present coastline is located 0.70 km. to the north of the proposed development site and the Stour Valley approximately 6 km. to the south. The surrounding topography slopes down to the north-west and south-east, forming two minor valleys extending towards the Wantsum valley, approximately 1.80 km. to the east. The local geology consists of London Clay which was encountered at a depth of 1.10 m. below the existing ground surface. This was seen to be overlain by a Head deposit, formed of intermittent flint gravels and sandy clays, which vary between 0.33 m. and 0.72 m. below the existing ground surface level, across the development area. Three linear features, measuring between 0.40 m. and 0.90 m. wide and up to 0.40 m. deep, were identified above the natural Head deposits. Infilled with silty clay and containing no cultural materials, these features were tentatively interpreted as natural, formed by surface water run-off draining towards the minor valleys to the north-west and south-east; comparable features identified as palaeochannels had been encountered during an archaeological excavation undertaken in 2001 at the former Hillborough Caravan Park site, located immediately west of the present development area (Woolridge et al. 2002; Bishop forthcoming). Excavation at the caravan park identified a significant surface concentration of early to middle Mesolithic flint tools, believed to have been indicative of consecutive seasonal use. Unfortunately, this

ANNUAL REPORT 30

material did not appear to extend into the present development area. Some residual later prehistoric material, including Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery sherds and worked ﬂints were recovered from the cultivated subsoil above the natural Head deposits in the north-west corner of the development area. This borders the adjacent Middle/Late Bronze Age features exposed at the former caravan park site, which consisted of two ditches, aligned north-

east to south-west, and several adjacent pits. That site was reoccupied during the later Iron Age, with activity represented by a series of roughly parallel, narrow trenches, with associated post- or stakeholes, tentatively interpreted by the excavators as timber-built structures (Woolridge et al. 2002; Bishop forthcoming). Evidence for Romano-British occupation on the current site was limited to a small number of residual

FIELDWORK: CANTERBURY DISTRICT SITES

Evaluation trenches were excavated by machine before cleaning by hand.

The late medieval metalled surface, looking west. Scale 1m.

Roman tile fragments intermixed with material from a later period. A comparable absence of Roman features and material was noted at the adjacent caravan park site which is perhaps surprising considering the proximity to the Roman shore fort at Reculver and the adjacent Roman road which followed the existing alignment of Sweechbridge Road (Cross 1994). Hillborough Farm is shown on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1801, and on the tithe map of 1846. It consisted of a farmhouse with two wings, a large barn and two smaller outbuildings. A desk-based assessment made by Oxford Archaeology Associates (Petchey 2004) indicated that the farm was likely to have had an earlier medieval antecedent. Hillborough is known to have

formed part of the Anglo-Saxon estate of Reculver, held by the monastery there from A.D. 668. The estate passed to the Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 940 following the destruction of Reculver monastery by Viking raiders (Sparks 1984). While pottery dated to the Anglo-Saxon period has been recovered from Hillborough churchyard, indicating a possible focus of early medieval activity to the north-east of the development area, further archaeological evidence for medieval activity has not yet been found. Late medieval occupation within the development area consisted of an area of gravel metalling, located in the north, forming either a courtyard surface or ﬂoor fronting Reculver Road and two segments of a north-east to south-west aligned ﬁeld boundary

A potential palaeochannel scouring the surface of natural Head deposits, truncated by a post-medieval ﬁeld ditch. Scale 1m.

ditch, located c. 15 m. to the south. Neither feature appears on the tithe map of 1846. During the post-medieval and modern periods, activity within the development area intensified, with a clear concentration of features to the north-west. These included a series of miscellaneous agricultural pits, post-holes, two field drainage ditches, gravel field drains, and an isolated dog burial, all of which have been attributed to the occupancy of Hillborough Farm. The work was directed by the author with the assistance of Ben Found. Processing of finds was undertaken by Jacqui Lawrence. Thanks are extended to the developer, Kitewood Estates Ltd and to Richard Cross of Canterbury City Council.

General view of development area, looking west towards the former caravan park site.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Kent Sites 19

DARTFORD

MARGATE SHEPPEY

GRAVESEND

BROADSTAIRS

11 18

RAMSGATE

ROCHESTER SITTINGBOURNE

20 FAVERSHAM

CANTERBURY D

SANDWICH F

MAIDSTONE

DEAL TONBRIDGE G ASHFORD

ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS

DOVER

13 14,15

0 5

10 11 12 13 14

10 miles

FOLKESTONE

NEW ROMNEY

HASTINGS

15 kms

Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough Ellington School, Ramsgate Admiralty Lookout, Dover Castle Sandgate Sea Cadet Headquarters, Castle Road, Sandgate New Romney sewer scheme

15 16 17 18 19

Sussex Road, New Romney Roman Road, Aldington Foster Road, Sevington Holborough Quarry, Snodland Church Street, Hoo St Werburgh

20 D E F G

Claxﬁeld Farm, Lynsted Sunnyside, Wingham Well Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, Margate No. 3 Millwall Place, Sandwich The Hilden Manor public house, Tonbridge

10 Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough Keith Parﬁtt and Barry Corke

Working in conjunction with the British Museum, the Trust undertook another major excavation at Ringlemere (TR 2939 5698), the Bronze Age gold cup site (Parfitt 2003; 2004; Parfitt and Corke 2005; Needham et al. 2006). The most recent excavation (Trenches 6 and 6A) lasted from August 2005 until March 2006 and examined a substantial area in the western quarter of the site. The work was funded by the British Museum, the British Academy and a donation from Cliff Bradshaw, the original finder of the gold cup. Trust members Keith Parfitt, Barry Corke and Grant Shand again led the team and were joined for some of the time by staff from the British Museum, under Dr Stuart Needham. Much of the digging was carried out by volunteers, notably from Dover Archaeological Group, several other local societies and the archaeology departments of various universities. Regular reports on progress again appeared in the ever-popular Ringlemere Director’s Diary featured on the Trust’s web-site. Annual excavations since 2002 have demonstrated that the prehistoric site at Ringlemere is a complex

ANNUAL REPORT 30

General view of Ringlemere Trench 6.

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F1321

F1866

F1864 41

51 F1004

F1571

ro w

F1073 F1099 F1102

F1006

F1046

di tc h

F1731 14

43 45

42 26

F1549 H

27 46

Barrow ditch

H H 17 16

5m.

18 20 31

10m.

= Hearth

Plan of excavated pre-mound features.

one and the excavations undertaken in 2005−6 represented the largest area examined to date. The work greatly assisted our understanding of the site and it is now clear that the monument consists of rather more than a straightforward Bronze Age round barrow, as was originally assumed. Without doubt, there is also a signiﬁcant late Neolithic phase and it seems increasingly probable that the site began as a circular ditched henge monument, constructed by folk who used ﬁnely decorated Grooved Ware pottery. Trench 6 constituted the main excavation this season. It was located in the south-western sector, adjoining previous trenches 1 (2002), 3 (2003) and 5 (2004). It covered a total area of just over 400 square metres, including two substantial extensions to the west and south-west to excavate further segments of the enclosure ditch. Trench 6A was a smaller area situated to the north-east of Trench 6. It adjoined Trench 2 (2002) and Trench 4 (2003) and was designed to examine an area of the barrow mound that had not been completed during the excavation of Trench 4.

A Neolithic Grooved Ware settlement The earliest features encountered at the site were about 125 cut features, in the form of variously sized

Plan of Anglo-Saxon graves.

hollows, pits, post-holes and two subrectangular hearths. Collectively, these remains provide clear evidence for occupation on the site prior to the erection of the barrow mound. Associated Grooved Ware pottery shows this occupation occurred during the late Neolithic period. It is becoming increasingly certain that much of this activity took place within the ditched enclosure, originally assumed to be contemporary with the barrow mound but now believed to be earlier. These features were sealed beneath a buried soil, protected and preserved by the overlying barrow mound. Two more sections across the 5−6 m. wide enclosure ditch were cut. The ditch was almost 2 m. deep but as in previous seasons, it was found to contain relatively few ﬁnds. The ditch seems to have been completely silted and invisible by the Iron Age-Roman period and several Anglo-Saxon graves were cut into its upper ﬁlling.

The Bronze Age barrow mound Another large portion of the turf core of the prehistoric barrow mound was examined and again this was dry-sieved through a 1 cm. mesh. The area excavated proved to represent the best preserved section of the surviving mound, with a maximum thickness of 50 cm. A very substantial collection of Grooved Ware and some Beaker pottery was

recovered, together with quantities of struck ﬂint and calcined ﬂint. The great bulk of this material, however, appears to be derived from the pre-barrow occupation.

The Anglo-Saxon cemetery A few Anglo-Saxon graves had been discovered in 2004 but unexpectedly, many more were discovered this season. Almost forty burials were excavated. Most were inhumations, but there were also several cremations. From the grave-goods, many of these burials seem to be of ﬁfth-century date. Objects recovered included glass vessels, beads, brooches, silver rings and pins, buckles and various iron objects. Some exceptionally important graves appear to be represented. All the grave ﬁnds have been sent to the British Museum, where they have been stabilized, pending more detailed examination. With the completion of trenches 6 and 6A, about three-quarters of the monument at Ringlemere has now been excavated. On present evidence, it would seem that a circular ditched henge monument, with an entrance on the north side, had provided the site for the subsequent construction of the barrow mound, within which the gold cup was buried. It is intended to complete the excavation of the monument next year.

11Kent Schools Project Jon Rady and Damien Boden

Evaluation trenching and watching briefs at six schools scattered across Kent largely proved unproductive, with three sites producing no signiﬁcant archaeological remains, and two others only revealing short lengths of Iron Age/Early Roman ﬁeld ditches. The sixth site, however, in Ramsgate, revealed important evidence for occupation from prehistoric times until the AngloSaxon period, the discovery of which led to a full-scale excavation of the site.

The story begins in early 2004, when the Trust was appointed by the Kent Education Partnership to undertake the first stage of a programme of archaeological work associated with the first Kent Grouped Schools Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The PFI involved a green-field development for one new school (Ellington) at Ramsgate plus the demolition and replacement of some or all existing buildings, as well as landscaping, at five other schools, North

School in Ashford, Aylesford School, The Malling School at East Malling, Holmesdale Technology College in Snodland and Hugh Christie Technology College, Tonbridge. Following desk-based assessment of the sites, evaluation trenching was recommended at ﬁve of the school sites, with a watching brief at Hugh Christie Technology College. However, this exercise revealed little at most of the sites. No signiﬁcant archaeological

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

features at all were found at Hugh Christie Technology College, The Malling School or Holmesdale Technology College. At North School, Ashford, two short stretches of ditch were revealed that could not be closely dated beyond the Late Iron Age/Early Roman period, whilst at Aylesford School three stretches of ditch were thought to be of a similar date. However, evaluation trenching at the green-field site for the new Ellington school in Ramsgate revealed significant evidence for prehistoric settlement in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age, together with an important flint assemblage dating to the Neolithic. These discoveries prompted a recommendation for further excavation by the K.C.C. Heritage Conservation Group, which was carried out in the summer of 2005. A report on the results of this excavation is presented below.

s on

Enclosure ditches F20 and F2 ?Roman ditch F1

AREA A1

167000m.

Little Newlands Farm

? Enclosure ditch F22

Soakaway 3

Ellington School, Ramsgate Damien Boden The excavation took place between 23 May and 26 August 2005 under the direction of the author and Adrian Gollop and involved examining almost half a kilometre of new access road (areas A1, A2), the car park and contractor’s compound (Area A3) and the site of the school building itself (Area C1) (TR 3770 6660 centred). In addition to the main areas of excavation a watching brief and programme of limited excavation was maintained during additional groundworks on the site. This work included some widening of the access road, the cutting of service trenches and the excavation of three large soakaway pits: S1, S2 and S3. The investigation identified three main areas of activity or occupation: at the western end of road strip area A1 at its junction with Pysons Road; the northern extent of road way strip area A2 and an area spanning the southern part of Area A3 and northern part of Area C1. A further area of occupation or activity located to the south-west of strip area C1 is suggested by two curvilinear ditches which were identified within the footprint of Soakaway pit S2. In all over 450 cut features were identified during the investigation which produced some 5,600 sherds of flint-tempered pottery, over 700 fragments of animal bone and 200 fragments of burnt daub. The vast majority of the pottery dates to the later Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition and consisted of storage jars and other simple vessels typical of the location and period. Full analysis of the finds and environmental samples recovered during the work is still in progress although a brief assessment suggests activity on the site in the later Neolithic period, later Bronze Age–Early Iron Age, and the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. The majority of the features dated to the later Bronze Age.

wla

Cremation burials and related features and deposits

Bronze working area

Enclosure ditches

166900m.

AREA A2 Bronze hoard F211

166800m.

50m.

Medieval Field boundaries 166700m.

AREA A3 ?Ring-ditch

Grooved Ware pot

Post-hole structures

Enclosure ditches

Newlands Farm

? Ring ditch

Soakaway 1 166600m.

Enclosure G53

Neolithic finds F138

Post-hole structures

Ring-ditches

Metalled hollow way F50

AREA C1

637700m.

637500m.

Soakaway 2

637600m.

Anglo-Saxon structure G52

Enclosure ditches

Some of the ﬂint artefacts from the Ellington School site and site plan (scale 1:2500).

ANNUAL REPORT 30

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Some of the hammerstones recovered during the excavation.

Later Neolithic Although the excavation identified very little if any structural evidence of Neolithic settlement anywhere on the site, activity and probable occupation in the area is clearly represented by the considerable assemblage of later Neolithic flintwork recovered during the excavation of later features and during the initial machine stripping of the site. This assemblage included a very fine leaf-shaped arrowhead located at the base of a large, metalled hollow way (F50) located in the north-eastern corner of Area C1, a number of faceted flint hammerstones recovered as residual finds from features of a later date, and two polished axes, other finished implements and a large quantity of struck flakes recovered in association with later Bronze Age material from the basal fill of a pit (F138), also located in Area C1. A small assemblage of later Neolithic pottery was also recovered which included a fragmented Grooved Ware vessel retrieved during the stripping of Area A3, the base of a vessel from an evaluation trench located on the western side of Area A3 and as residual sherds from a number of features in areas A3 and C1. It is also possible that a series of segmented ditch-lines forming a funnel-shaped enclosure located immediately to the north-west of the hollow way may have their origins in the Neolithic period, although a secure date for these features will rely on the results of further pottery and environmental analysis.

for bronzeworking. In some areas particularly at the western end of Area A1, the northern end of Area A2 and the southern side of Area A3, protracted occupation was evident with many features possessing a stratigraphic relationship with others. At the eastern end of road strip A1, immediately to the east of its junction with Pysons Road, two phases of a substantial, north–south aligned slightly curvilinear ditch (F20 and F2), a possible subrectangular post-hole structure, an area of pitting and a number of other smaller features were identiﬁed. The later of the ditches (F2) was some 1.50 m. deep and nearly 2 m. across and possessed a steep v-shaped proﬁle which would suggest some defensive purpose and probably represents the northern limit of settlement activity in that area. The main focus of the settlement activity, at least in the area available for excavation, appears to be located toward the northern end of road strip area A2 and in Soakaway pit 3, where numerous pits, post-holes, ditches, several cremation burials and

other cut features (probably small clay quarries) were located. Given the narrow ‘corridor’ like nature of this strip area it is difficult to give a true interpretation of the majority of the linear features although these were generally no more than 1.2 m. wide and probably represent various phases of field boundaries or enclosure ditches. A more substantial ditch (F22) crossed the far northern end of this area, and in association with ditch F2 in Area A1 probably represents the northern limit of settlement activity over the general site. Evidence of bronzeworking in the form of slag and bronze droplets was recovered from the fills of several pits. A substantial bronze hoard (F211) which contained over eighty implements including socketed axes, spear-heads, gouges, sword fragments and other implements together with copper and bronze ingots was also present, although this had been illegally removed by a metal detectorist, and is now in the possession of the British Museum. The hoard has been dated to the Ewart Park phase of the later Bronze Age and was probably deposited at some time between 1050 and 850 B.C. One urned and four un-urned cremation burials together with three small pits containing in situ ceramic vessels (offerings?) were also identified toward the northern end of Area A2 and probably represent elements of a larger cemetery in the area which extends beyond the limits of the investigation. In addition to these funerary features a number of the pits in this area contained what appeared to be ‘placed’ objects consisting of large pot sherds, animal bone, fragments of quern and other cultural material which was probably ‘offered’ to the earth before infilling, and possibly possessed some ritualistic or votive function or significance. Two ring-ditches were also identified which may be of later Bronze Age origin, although the paucity of dating evidence retrieved during their excavation precludes any secure dating of the features. A further focus of activity was identified along the southern side of Area A3 and the northern extent of Area C1, and although several phases of occupation can be suggested, the character of the features identified was somewhat different, and the number

Later Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition The majority of the features identiﬁed would appear to date from the later Bronze Age or Early Iron Age periods and include; ﬁeld boundary, drainage and enclosure ditches, post-hole structures and alignments, domestic refuse pits and pits of probable industrial purpose, cremation burials, and evidence

The bronze hoard.

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The Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured structure, looking west. Scale 2 m.

and concentration of features was not as great as that encountered at the northern end of Area 2. In this area a number of possible post-hole structures, pits and ditch alignments were identified, and apart from a large, rectangular, segmented enclosure (G53), the majority of those ditches possibly represent drove or track ways rather than field or enclosure ditches. Two possible enclosure ditches, however, were identified to the south-west of Area C1, within the footprint of Soakaway pit 3. These were somewhat divorced from the other features in this area, and given their slightly curved alignment, probably represent the northern limit of an area of occupation away to the south-west. Occupation of the area appears to cease at some time in the Early Iron Age, and apart from an east–west aligned ditch F1 located at the western end of Area A1 which may be of later Iron Age or Roman origin, no further evidence of later prehistoric or Roman occupation was encountered.

This was a subrectangular, east to west aligned feature, 3.80 m. long, 2.80 m. wide and 0.36 m. deep with a circular post-hole at each end. There was a primary beaten earth floor with traces of a rammed chalk surface toward the south-western corner and a small hearth or area of burning in the north-western corner. A number of finds were recovered from this feature which included the base of a Roman pot (perhaps used as a ‘coaster’ or the base of a leather or woollen draw-string bag), a fragment of iron bucket or cauldron and a bronze pin. Small huts of this type were typical of those built between the sixth and ninth centuries and may be part of a small farmstead or village located somewhere further to the east, beyond the limit of the excavation. This was the only evidence of domestic occupation of the Anglo-Saxon period, although a number of ditches, a large rectangular enclosure and two disturbed, possible penannular ring-ditches within its confines may be contemporary.

Anglo-Saxon

No evidence of medieval occupation was identiﬁed although a number of roughly east–west aligned ditches located toward the southern end of Area A2 contained a few very small, abraded sherds of sand-tempered medieval pottery, oyster shell, and a fragment of iron nail. These ditches are almost

Apart from the discovery of the polished ﬂint axes and the ﬂint metalled hollow way, perhaps the most unexpected feature to have come to light was an Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured structure (G52) located toward the eastern side of Area C1.

Medieval/post-medieval

certainly field boundaries and drainage ditches with the pottery and other cultural material imported into the area during manuring and marling of the fields. Evidence of marling (the application of chalk as a soil improver) was found throughout the excavation as a thin band of chalk at the base of the ploughsoil. During the watching brief two wide field boundaries, and several pits and post-holes were identified toward the south-western corner of Area C1. These features contained nineteenth-century bottle glass and china, brick, tile and other relatively modern material and probably relate to arable fields which existed here before the laying out of the sports field in the 1940s. This article contains only a brief overview and initial interpretation of the site and mentions or describes only the more significant results of the investigation. Further examination of the finds and analysis of the results of the environmental processing will be completed next year.

Acknowledgements Numerous people were involved in various aspects of the Kent Schools project, including Trust staff, school site managers and caretakers, project managers and surveyors of various companies and site agents, managers and engineers of the two main contractors, Costain and Verry Construction, eventually chosen to carry out the six developments. Thanks are extended to all those who took part in the site works, often in very severe winter weather, or who assisted. Thanks are extended in particular to the following: Jordan Stainier and Chris Peeling of Verry Construction, Paddy Mount, Steve Bryant, Julia Davis and Chris Knight of Costain; Karen Ching of AYH PLC and Hitesh Garach of Scott Brownrigg; at the North School, Gill Stephenson and the caretakers; at Aylesford, the school authorities, particularly John Parkin and the caretakers; at Malling, Graham Shotter and the caretakers. The authors are also extremely grateful to the Site Manager of Holmesdale Technology College, Mr Doug Cable and Roy the caretaker for their friendly assistance during all stages of the works. The excavation team at Ellington School would especially like to thank Mr Arthur Thomas Burbridge of Little Newlands who provided parking space, allowed the siting of the site hut on his land, and who kindly provided water for the site during the excavation.

12 Admiralty Lookout, Dover Castle Ben Found

During December 2005 and January 2006 the Trust maintained an archaeological watching brief during groundworks being undertaken close to the Admiralty Lookout at Dover Castle (TR 3274 4163). The works were commissioned by English Heritage through their architects Radleigh House Partnership in advance of the cutting of a new electricity service trench to supply power to the Admiralty Lookout and ﬁve investigative trenches. The structure known as Admiralty Lookout has been continually developed from the 1870s until the end of the Second World War to meet the changing

ANNUAL REPORT 30

needs and technology involved in the protection and fortiﬁcation of the southern boundary of Dover Castle and Dover Harbour. Admiralty Lookout started life as the Hospital Battery, three gun emplacements mounted en barbette built between 1871 and 1875 to protect the growing port at Dover. The Hospital Battery was named after the Garrison Hospital built in the nineteenth century to the rear of the Admiralty Lookout (Coad 1995). In 1905 the Dover Fire Command Post was built over the then obsolete central gun emplacement. This building was further expanded and modiﬁed in

1914 with the construction of the Port War Signal Station and associated stores which controlled shipping entering and leaving the port of Dover. With the outbreak of the Second World War the Admiralty Lookout was further modiﬁed by the provision of concrete blast walls to the rear of the structure and a reinforced concrete roof to provide protection from aerial attack. The structure was abandoned shortly after the war and the Garrison Hospital demolished in the 1960s. After the demolition of the hospital the entire area was landscaped and the present ground level has been substantially altered since

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the Admiralty Lookout fell out of use. Work is now underway to conserve and restore the buildings of the Admiralty Lookout. Excavation and monitoring of the ﬁve investigative trenches as well as the electricity service trench revealed that extensive remains of the Garrison Hospital survive well-preserved beneath the modern landscaped ground surface. Brick-built walls of the Garrison Hospital were recorded in the electricity trench as well as investigative trenches 2, 3 and 4. Sections of the main external southern wall of the hospital building were revealed within all of these trenches. A more complex arrangement of walls was revealed in Trench 3 where a projecting set of walls formed a rectangular arrangement forward of the main external wall. These walls may have formed part of an external light-well to admit light to a cellar or half-cellar under the main hospital building.

Between the remains of the former Garrison Hospital and the Admiralty Lookout evidence was found for landscaping and walls associated with gardens of the hospital. The retaining wall deﬁning the northern edge of the Admiralty Lookout complex was exposed in all of the trenches. In trenches 2 and 5 a pathway was exposed forward of this wall, whilst in Trench 1 there was a concrete platform for the gun battery. The platform was retained on its western side by a substantial sloping brick-built wall. It is thought that these represented the northwestern corner of the southern gun emplacement of the battery complex with the sloping brick-built wall either forming the outer wall of the battery or a buttress for this wall. The work was directed by Abby Guinness with assistance from Crispin Jarman. Thanks are extended to Alan Hughes and the site staff

of B.W. May Builders Ltd; to Judith Roebuck of English Heritage; and Jeremy Poll of Radley House Partnership.

The Admiralty Lookout under restoration.

13 Sandgate Sea Cadet Headquarters, Castle Road, Sandgate Richard Helm

During August 2005 three evaluation trenches were excavated at the former Sea Cadet headquarters in Castle Road, Sandgate (TR 20635 35182). The works were commissioned by Gillcrest Homes, who had obtained planning permission for the redevelopment of the site as residential ﬂats. The proposed works included the demolition of the existing standing building, originally the Sandgate National School founded in 1845, for which a

ANNUAL REPORT 30

separate standing historic buildings survey was undertaken. The proposed development area is situated on the sea frontage, adjacent to Sandgate Castle, constructed by order of Henry VIII between 1539 and 1540, and re-used during the Napoleonic Wars. The castle, now under private ownership, is a Grade I Listed Building and Scheduled Ancient Monument (Harris 1980).

The construction of a castle at Sandgate did not appear to encourage surrounding settlement. Although ﬁrst mentioned as a named locality in 1256 (Larkin 1860, 244), there is no evidence for permanent settlement, other than a single farmhouse, referenced in 1539, prior to the commencement of the castle works (Rutton 1893, 232). Maps of Sandgate dated to 1713 and 1725 show only a single dwelling with outbuildings to the north-west of the castle, and a

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Postcard view showing development area c. 1900. The slipway and wall are visible in the background. Looking east.

single house located on the north side of the main road (now the west side of the present junction between High Street and Military Road). Sandgate expanded rapidly in the eighteenth century following the establishment of a ship-building industry. In 1773 Fabian Clayton Wilson, a shipwright from Dover established a shipyard immediately east of Sandgate Castle, including the erection of ‘a great number of smaller tenements for his workmen, and others for sale, so that from the ﬁrst to the last he erected about 30 dwellings, mostly at the eastern end of the village’ (Purday 1823). By the 1770s two other yards had been established, owned by William Hall and Phineas Jacob, the latter located immediately west of Sandgate Castle, within the present development area. Other ship and boat

The 1872 Ordnance Survey.

The same view during the evaluation works showing part of the exposed wall. Scale 1 m.

builders known to have been working in Sandgate in the 1780s and 1790s included Graves, Flisher, Stockwell and Lowe, but by 1812 Graves was the only yard still remaining (Cross 1998, 8).

The development of Sandgate continued with the establishment of a barracks and artillery battery above Sandgate at Shornecliffe in 1794; at the same time the town developed independently as a successful coastal resort (René-Martin 1998). Late eighteenth-century maps show houses and workshops immediately abutting the southern side of the High Street with the positions of stocks or slipways running south across shelving shingle banks (Cross 1998, 15). By 1798 the development area was described as ‘waste ground’ and was retrospectively described by John Gough in 1855 as ‘the village green where fairs were held’ until the foundation of the National School in 1845. Previous archaeological works have included observations made during the installation of the main sewers, laid out along the High Street and adjoining roads during the 1880s, including observation along Castle Road, at that time named Martello Road. These indicated that ‘As far as shown by excavations for sewers, nothing but beach is to be met within a considerable depth’ (Rutton 1893, 231). More recent watching and recording brief work was carried out by the Trust between 1998 and 1999 along the High Street, Castle Road and Martello Terrace, during groundworks undertaken as part of the Folkestone to Hythe Flood Alleviation Scheme. This work confirmed the presence of beach materials to a depth of at least 5.2 m. and no archaeological deposits or features were observed (Linklater 2000, 6–7). Despite this, the proximity of Sandgate Castle ensured that some form of archaeological works would be necessary prior to development. The three evaluation trenches confirmed that the development area overlay former storm beach gravel deposits, shelving steeply towards the shoreline. The castle had undergone several episodes of storm damage, recorded from as early as 1623 and 1627, and again in 1866, 1877 and 1927; erosion finally leading to the loss of one third of the castle in 1949 (Cross 1998, 7). During the evaluation, remnant ragstone blocks associated with this storm damage, intermixed

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Detail of north end of wall, with War Department marker stone. Scale 1 m. Looking south-east.

within the exposed storm beach gravels, were identified. No evidence for the late eighteenth-century shipbuilding industry was recovered. However, a segment of dressed ragstone wall, capped by a single course of dressed granite blocks, was revealed in the southeast corner of the development area. The wall was finely built, the exposed section having a minimum standing height of 1.15 m. and extending from the north end for an observed length of 4.76 m., continuing beyond the limits of the evaluation to the south. A War Department marker, formed from a single block of Portland stone was recorded placed in an upright position at the north end of the wall. Both the wall and marker are shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1872 (Stone W.D. 2). Whilst no direct evidence for the dating of this wall was recovered during the evaluation, it is reasonable to attribute it with modifications to Sandgate Castle during the nineteenth century (Harris 1980, 83).

A thick deposit of compacted sandy clay, exposed below the latest storm gravel beach deposits, abutted the exposed wall face. This deposit, with a gently sloping gradient, appeared to gave been purposefully laid, perhaps as a bedding for a slipway to the shoreline. Such an interpretation is strengthened by a c. 1900 postcard showing the development area, while still occupied by the First Cinque Ports Volunteer Artillery, No. 8 Company, with a slipway and wall visible in the same area. Presumably the slipway still remained open when the building was taken over by the Sandgate Sea Cadets in the 1940s. The work was directed by the author, with the assistance of Ian Dixon. Finds were processed by Jacqui Lawrence. Thanks are extended to Martin Wood, Gillcrest Homes; Adam Single, Heritage Conservation Group, Kent County Council; and Mr G. Boot at Sandgate Castle.

14 New Romney sewer scheme Mick Diack

The Trust is engaged in a continuing programme of archaeological work in advance of the New Romney and Greatstone First Time Sewerage Scheme, working on behalf of 4D and Southern Water. Archaeological evaluation of the route of the sewer consisting of the cutting of a number of trial trenches took place in 2004 (Boden 2006) together with the monitoring of a large number of service location test pits throughout the town. As a result of the evaluation, further archaeological works have been carried out in areas considered to have signiﬁcant archaeological potential. This involved a small excavation at the western end of Church Road, close to the junction with the Lydd Road, and an excavation within St Martin’s Field. Archaeological monitoring of the sewer pipeline and related groundworks has also been carried out since November 2005. The two excavations are now complete, though the pipeline monitoring work continues. Canterbury Archaeological Trust was helped on both excavations by local metal detectorist Mick Allen; a great many of the metal ﬁnds were recovered

by his efforts, and grateful thanks are extended to him for his many hours of work. Many thanks also to the Reverend Martin Dale for allowing us access to the church tower of St Nicholas’ Church.

Church Road excavation An area at the western end of Church Road was topsoil stripped in mid September of 2005 in preparation for the construction of pumping station number 3 and also for a settling pond and a works

Church Road. Detail of excavation showing environmental samples being taken. Cobble surfaces can also be seen.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

compound. All of these works were monitored and various archaeological observations were made within the area of the settling pond which was reduced to a lower level than the rest of the compound. These consisted of shallow ditches and a scatter of finds indicating that the area was being used from the late medieval period through to the sixteenth century. An area 13 metres square around the location of the pumping station itself was also reduced to a further depth and was subject to detailed archaeological excavation. This area revealed several metalled surfaces and a sequence of pits suggesting the presence of a building nearby. The site was particularly rich in terms of finds with approximately 23 kilos of pottery as well as large quantities of brick and tile, animal bone, shell and worked stone. Metal finds included nine buckles, thirteen coins, six tokens, six knife blades, three fish hooks and an iron horse spur. The spur was a rowel spur, having a multi-

Recording archaeological deposits during pipeline watching brief. Above: some of the medieval coins from Church Road, including long and short cross pennies.

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Excavation of a 5 metre wide area across the southern end of St Martin’s Field, off Ashford Road and Fairﬁeld Road, commenced at the end of October 2005. The area excavated was the path of the sewerage pipeline and it was known that St Martin’s Church, originally the principal parish church of New

Romney and its graveyard were located here. The presence of burials had been conﬁrmed by evaluation trenches cut by the Trust in 2004. The excavation proved to be located at the edge of the burial ground with a clearly demarcated line of graves to the south. In total there were forty-seven graves recorded, though eight of these were not excavated as they were outside the area impacted by the pipeline. The excavated burials are currently held in store prior to being analysed by a specialist; ultimately the remains will be reburied in New Romney. Surprisingly an articulated horse and an articulated pig were also found buried within the area of the cemetery and whilst they related to a later period, after the churchyard had ceased to be used for human burial, they had nevertheless been interred in an area well known to have once been a burial ground. Apart from the burials, there were many other archaeological features including a ditch that seemed to have formed the boundary of the graveyard to the west. There were dumped demolition deposits that were thought to relate to the demolition of the church in 1549 or buildings associated with the

adjacent priory as well as domestic and industrial material that probably originated from buildings fronting the High Street. This site was also rich in terms of finds with twenty-four buckles, twenty-four coins, nine tokens, twelve knife blades a horse bit, three iron and one copper alloy horse spurs (making a total of ﬁve of these rare and high status items recovered from New Romney during the archaeological works). Another rare and unusual ﬁnd was a loading chamber for a medieval cannon. The coins included a small hoard of silver coins consisting of three groats, a half groat and a penny of Henry VIII deposited 1547–48 (one of the coins is a posthumous issue). The half groat was minted in Canterbury, the other coins London. Other silver coins included a further groat of Henry VIII, a groat of Mary I, a penny and sixpence of Elizabeth I. Tokens included a French jetton of approximately 1385–1415 date and a German Nuremberg jetton of 1586–1635 date.

Pig burial at St Martin’s Field.

Horse burial at St Martin’s Field.

Coins from the small hoard deposited 1547–8.

pointed rotating goad rather than a single point. Such spurs were in use from the mid thirteenth century onwards. Eleven of the coins were medieval silver short-cross and long-cross pennies and included coins that had been cut in half or in quarter in order to create half pennies and farthings. These coins ranged from late twelfth to early fourteenth century in date; the non silver coins were unstratiﬁed and were of eighteenth- to nineteenth-century date. Four of the tokens were lead; the other two were copper alloy and included a French jetton dated 1380–1422 and a seventeenth-century butcher’s token. The site was also rich in terms of environmental remains with a good assemblage of bird and ﬁsh bones as well as mollusc shells. The excavation was completed in mid October 2005.

St Martin’s Field excavation

Pipeline watching brief The cutting of the sewer pipe trenches and the many associated manhole chambers is currently

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

being monitored as part of an ongoing programme of archaeological works. This phase of work commenced in November of 2005 and has involved up to three members of staff working with the pipeline contractors to ensure that any archaeological remains disturbed during the groundworks are investigated and recorded. The pipeline work along the western half of Church Road revealed post-medieval road surfaces as well as several medieval pits. Groundworks in the vicinity of Spitalﬁeld Lane revealed drainage ditches

which may have related to the Hospital of St Stephen and St Thomas, though no evidence for the hospital itself or any associated burials were noted. There will however be further pipeline work closer to the hospital site carried out at a later date. Pipeline work at the western end of the Lydd Road, initially produced little in the way of archaeological remains but as the pipeline work continued towards the centre of town sequences of clay ﬂoors and robbed out wall trenches together with large

quantities of pottery indicated the presence of medieval buildings in the area close to the junction of West Street and Lions Road. The installation of the pipeline in the excavated area in St Martin’s Field was also monitored and two small portions of medieval walls were noted in the area between the edge of the excavation and the Ashford Road, parallel to the priory. The watching brief work continues.

15 Sussex Road, New Romney John Willson

adjacent to the site was founded and built some time during the second half of the twelfth century. It seems probable that the stone was intended for one or more of these establishments. The other ﬁnds also suggest that horn working and cloth or textile ﬁnishing were among the industries being carried out near the site. Archaeological and documentary evidence suggests that most of the town’s small industrial enterprises were situated around the periphery of the town, with the populous and the commercial centre dominated by the markets, fringed by the three parish churches. Rough’s Register (dating to the thirteenth century; Murray 1945), records that horn working was undertaken in New Romney at that time, if not earlier. There is also mention of butchers’ shambles, tanners, clothing manufacture and the trade in wool and wool-fells.

Medieval buildings The stone ?linen-smoothers and hone stone.

The ancient medieval port of New Romney now lies landlocked, stranded a mile away from the sea. In its heyday, however, it was an important maritime centre, one of the Cinque Ports mentioned in a Royal Charter of 1155 along with Dover, Hastings, Hythe and Sandwich. In a series of watching briefs conducted by the Trust between September 2003 and July 2005, important new evidence was recorded concerning the town’s medieval history. The work was occasioned by the building of two new houses at the former Sussex Road Garage site (TR 0618 2483). The site lies on the north-west outskirts of the town on a corner plot to the west side of Spitalfield Lane and the north side of Sussex Road, an area of almost flat land at about 4.70 m. above Ordnance Datum. Fieldwork was carried out by Andrew Linklater, with occasional assistance from Dale Robertson of the Trust, in accordance with a specification prepared by Simon Mason of Kent County Council, and on behalf of Mr Ivor Burstin of Kingley Homes who funded the work (Willson and Linklater 2006). The foundations of the new houses were designed to stop at the top of the stratified levels so no physical excavation was undertaken, other than the cleaning and recording of various sections through deposits revealed by the removal of old fuel and oil tanks and the developer’s newly excavated cesspits, soakaway pits, boundary and service trenches. By piecing together the many disparate observations

ANNUAL REPORT 30

made at different times, a broader picture of the site’s early development has emerged.

Early industry The earliest archaeological deposits consisted of an important sequence of early mixed silty-sand deposits overlying natural sand dunes and a single linear feature cutting the sand. These deposits contained pottery sherds (generally dated to c. 1150–1175), animal bones, some structural evidence such as daub and carbon and evidence for industrial activity, including several ﬁne, handheld stone (linen?) smoothers, a schist hone stone, numerous sheep horn cores, and a layer of Caen stone chippings and small worked pieces. The Caen stone, imported from Normandy, suggests that there was an unknown stone workshop nearby, probably in the second half of the twelfth century. A considerable quantity of worked Caen stone was also recorded during building works immediately to the west of the site in the 1990s, including window frame pieces, a column shaft and a small, ﬁne Norman column capital, about 0.25 m. square. Whilst it is unknown where this worked stone was destined, this was a period of church building and rebuilding. In New Romney at this time were two existing parish churches, those of St Martin and St Lawrence, but the new church of St Nicholas was being constructed during this period and the leper hospital (the Blessed St Stephen and St Thomas)

Sealing the earliest deposits on the site was a series of early to late medieval rectangular timber buildings with associated clay floors, hearths and other structural features that fronted medieval metalled road surfaces on the line of the present Spitalfield Lane. Though none of these buildings was seen in its entirety, the disparate fragments of evidence suggest there were ten structures (labelled A–J), which may be divided into six phases spanning the years 1150–1650. Phase I: c. 1150–1250: This phase comprised three structures. Structure A was set at right angles to Spitalfield Lane, probably measuring 10 by 11 m., with a clay floor, two hearths and four post- or stake-holes. Structure B was parallel to Spitalfield Lane, measured 10 by 5 m., and had a clay floor with a single hearth. Structure C was also parallel to Spitalfield Lane, with similar dimensions to Structure B and had a clay floor and a single post-hole. Phase II: c. 1250–1350/75: Two buildings could be assigned to Phase II. Structure D, at right angles to the road, measured 12 by 6 m., with a clay floor, four hearths and three stake- or post-holes. Structure E was parallel to the road, was just 7 by 5 m. and had a clay floor, a single hearth and one post-hole. Phase III: c. 1350–1400: The single building in this phase (Structure F) was at right-angles to Spitalfield Lane, around 9 m. long and just over 4 m. broad, with a clay floor, a hearth, a beam-slot and a single post-hole. Phase IV: c. 1400–75: Both buildings in this phase were set at right angles to the road. Structure G was around 9 by 4.5 m., with a clay floor, a single

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Existing garage to adjoining property Sp i t a l f i e l d L a n e

Structure A Later pit PT 1 CP1/1

House Plot B

CP1/2

Machine disturbance

Structure B

5m.

Structures A & B. Phase I c. A.D. 1150–1250

early thirteenth century. The function of the building was unclear. It was probably not a dwelling, as little domestic rubbish was found associated with it, suggesting that it may have been a barn (Barber 2006, 15–16). The post-holes, stake-holes and possible beamslots suggest simple timber structures with clay floors, wattle and daub walls and most likely of single storey construction. Initially roofs appear to have been thatched with straw or reeds. Later, evidence of roofing-slates from dump or abandonment deposits over floors suggests alternative roofing and perhaps more robust timber superstructure to take the extra

Structure B Later pit

The nature of the buildings

CP2/2

5m. Later pit

CP2/1 SP4/1

Structure C

House Plot A Sp i t a l f i e l d L a n e

4 Sussex Road

The postulated dimensions of these buildings, if correct, would conform to work on other medieval sites where rectangular buildings were often laid out in a ratio of approximately 2:1. At Townwall Street, Dover (Parfitt et al. 2006), early medieval clay- and chalk-floored structures, were mostly rectangular-shaped, measured somewhere between 7.80 to 10 m. in length and 3.60 (min) to 5.50 m. in width. In addition, similar clay floor structures were excavated at Fullers Hill, Great Yarmouth (Rogerson 1976, 158). Here, in early medieval phases, floored structures measured between 8 m. and 10 m. in length and a minimum of 3.25 m. in width; whilst a heavily disturbed floor of a much later phase, measured at least 10 m. in length by 4.85 m. in width. Excavations at Lydd Quarry (Site A) revealed evidence for a rectangular-shaped building, with a series of post-holes for a timber post superstructure. The building, measured 10 by 5 m. and pottery from the site dated the building to the late twelfth to

Machine disturbance

SP2/1

hearth and a beam-slot. Structure H was of similar dimensions, but appeared to have a porched entrance or wing on its south-east side measuring at least 1.2 m. square. It had a clay floor which extended into the south-eastern extension, three beam-slots defining the north-eastern end of the building and two post-holes in the south-eastern extension. Overlying the clay floor was a destruction deposit containing crushed mortar, broken roof slates and a piece of late medieval floor tile. Phase V: c. 1475–1550: Set at right angles to Spitalfield Lane, Structure I was probably around 9 m. long and 4.5 m. broad, with a clay floor containing clay roof-tile fragments and roof slates. Phase VI: c. 1550–1650: Also set at right-angles to the road, Structure J measured 9 by 4.5 m. Like all the other buildings it had a clay floor, but was also represented by two masonry dwarf walls set within a wall-trench and three possible stake-holes. A destruction deposit overlying the floor contained lumps of ragstone, clay roof peg-tiles and broken roof slates.

Sussex Road

weight of the roof; some of the more centralised post-holes may have been roof-supports. Later still, clay roof-tiles and dwarf stone-walls (Phase VI) suggest much more substantial structures, even possibly of two-storey construction. The economic way of life and status of the property owners/workers remains unknown. It seems likely that the occupiers would have lived elsewhere, perhaps in more substantial buildings in the centre of town around the early High Street (Church Road) and subsequently the new High Street (the present High Street) established during the late thirteenth century, conveniently close to the markets and churches. The absence of domestic debris, occupation deposits or rubbish- and cess-pits (only one very late phase post-medieval cess-pit was located) might suggest a non-domestic function for the buildings. In addition, the pottery was of a simple nature, more akin to industrial usage, with very little in the way of more sophisticated vessels and imported wares that one might normally associate with domestic dwellings. No deﬁnite evidence of ‘burgage plots’ was revealed, though this was most probably due to the limited nature of the watching brief work and limited areas of the site that were exposed.

Continuity of occupation? It is unclear if the site at Sussex Road was occupied continuously without a break throughout the medieval period. Most of the structures have evidence of abandonment and in some instances layers of possible wind-blown sand, or silty-sand covered the deserted buildings, possibly suggesting periods of abandonment. How these deposits formed is unclear; they may be naturally deposited or deliberate make-up layers. Possibly some of these deposits were water-lain. Areas of the town nearer the sea front were often inundated by the sea during the many storms of the thirteenth century, particularly those of 1250, 1252 and the well documented ‘great storm’ of 1287–8, which devastated large parts of the town nearer the sea. At this time, the site was closer to the western harbour and the mouth of the river Rother, subsequently blocked by the great storm. This probably caused the river Rother to overflow, flood the surrounding area, and lay down deposits of silty-sand. Such storms would also bring severe winds, which might destroy simple timber buildings and cover their remains with wind-blown sand. Evidence for the eventual abandonment of the site was not clearly represented. The last phase of recorded structures can be dated to c. 1550 to 1650. Modern development had destroyed deposits later than this date, but the remains of a later cesspit is evidence of some later occupation. William Webb’s map of 1614, although very stylistic, shows a single building on the site fronting Spitalfield Lane, suggesting that at least one building survived up until that time. The surveyor’s field drawing for the first edition Ordnance Survey (dated c. 1805) shows the site as open land with no structures upon it. The same situation is clear on both the tithe map of 1841 and the second edition Ordnance Survey of 1898. The site remained open land until c. 1905–10 when the workshop for the Sussex Road Garage was built.

Structures B & C. Phase I c. A.D. 1150–1250.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

16 Roman Road, Aldington Andrew Linklater

During the final days of December 2005 the Trust was commissioned to undertake an archaeological watching brief during the installation of a new electricity service cable approximately 900 m. to the east of the village of Aldington (TR 06752 36261). This was because the proposed route crossed the line of one of Kent’s major Roman roads (Margary 1955, 43–4; Route 131). Initially running from a sizable settlement beneath present day Maidstone to the Roman coastal fort at Lympne (Portus Lemanis), it passed through the newly discovered Roman small town near Westhawk Farm, Kingsnorth (Booth and Lawrence 2000). Today only a short section of this road is passable, as a minor country lane between Lympne and Aldington, whilst the remainder can be identified through parch marks or ancient field boundaries. The project mainly entailed the close monitoring of a 450 m. length of narrow machine-excavated trenching from an existing below ground electricity cable, located in open fields north of the road line to an existing high voltage cable pylon to the south. Little of archaeological interest was revealed in the fields either side of the road, with topsoil lying directly over the natural clay subsoil. It was not until the new service trench cut the line of the modern road that evidence of its Roman predecessor was revealed beneath the existing tarmac surface. Consisting of a layer of small ragstone chippings set in compacted silty sand over 8 m. wide and nearly 0.30 m. thick towards its centre, its upper surface clearly formed a distinct camber (7). This deposit was laid directly over a purposefully laid layer of medium-sized pieces of ragstone rubble lining the base of a shallow linear hollow (7a), which had been cut into the top of an artificial clay embankment beneath the line of the road (8). Measuring over 9 m. wide, this embankment was constructed across the line of a natural vale to raise the road surface between its elevated sides to the east and west of the excavation. Two further deposits of clay appear to have been dumped against the northern edge of the embankment, possibly to stabilise the downhill slope and increasing its overall width to over 15 m. This northern side was further built up by the deposition of additional soils, forming a ridge as high as the elevated modern road surface, which

Below ground cable connection point

w ou gr nd b ca le

able ead c

Natural clay

open tre

75m

136300m.

Cobb’s Hall L.

V. O

Drawn section across road

136200m.

74.2m

Line of

open tr

enching

71.0m

V. o

rh e

65m

606900m.

606800m.

606700m.

60m

Base unit connection point for phone mast

500m.

Annotated extract of the modern Ordnance Survey map, showing the alinement of the new electricity cable trench in relation to the surrounding landscape and its dissection across the proposed route of Roman Road (Margary Route 131). Service trench

Service trench Tarmac

1 4

5 5

Ragstone bedding

6 3

Service trench

7 8

6 7a

South 6 Topsoil

7 7a

Natural clay

3 Electricity pole

Line of

BM 70.17m

Topsoil

1 5 4

71.1m

Topsoil 1

Sylvanhurst

70m

71m.OD.

Plant debris in base of modern road ditch

nching

overh H. V. ma

65m

Service trench

Boundary fence and hedge

Based on the Ordnance Survey's 1:1250 map of 2001 with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, © Crown Copyright. Licence No. AL100021009

elo

B V. L.

136400m.

60m

North

136500m.

1. Firm-loose dry (crumbly) mid grey-brown silty/clay. 2. Firm moist mid brown silty/clay. 3. Firm moist pale brown silty/clay. 4. Loose-firm dry (crumbly) mixed grey-brown silty/clay containing occasional sm-m-l Ragstone rubble. 5 Firm dry (crumbly) mid-dark grey silty/clay. 6. Firm-compacted dry pale-mid creamy brown silty sand containing rare-occasional small Ragstone rubble. 7. Small Ragstone chippings set in a compacted dry pale grey/creamy brown silty sand. 7a.Puposefully laid pieces of medium sized Ragstone rubble. 8. Firm-compacted dry creamy grey silty sand containing occasional small Ragstone rubble pieces. 9. Recent brick and concrete rubble associated with the field entrance and its boundary ditch.

2m.

Section across Roman Road, Aldington, showing earlier road surface constructed into the top of a clay dump causeway.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

modern roadway falls directly over the earlier road alignment and the remains exposed represent the remnants of the Roman road. Our thanks are extended to Mrs K. Rufﬂes for commissioning the Trust on behalf of EDF Energy,

still shows as a prominent feature of the modern landscape. Though no dating evidence was retrieved from either the road make-up or the artiﬁcial embankment upon which the road sat, it seems likely that the

who provided funding for the project. Thanks are further extended to Steve Rutherford and the workforce of Raylands Contracting for their interest and support throughout the watching brief.

17 Foster Road, Sevington Richard Helm

141100m. Ashford Business Park

141000m.

sin

ste

k Tr13 Tr10

urt

Tr15 Tr14

Tr11

Tr8

140900m.

Tr12

Tr5 Tr9 Tr6

RO A

Tr4

Tr3

Tr2

Tr7

Ashford Business Park

Tr1

Tanks

140800m. Boys Hall

i lw

50m.

603300m.

Moat

603200m.

603100m.

603000m.

602900m.

(site of)

140700m. Balancing pond

An evaluation undertaken between February and March 2006 identiﬁed evidence of late prehistoric, Anglo-Saxon and early medieval activity at Ashford Business Park, Foster Road, Sevington (TR 03115 40880). The work was commissioned by Henry Riley, on behalf of PPG Southern Ltd who had obtained planning consent for the erection of twenty-four industrial units. The proposed development area is located on an undeveloped plot of land of just over 1 hectare in area. The site is bounded to the south by the main London-Folkestone and Channel Tunnel Rail Link; to the east and west by existing industrial units and to the north by Foster Road. It lies on the southern edge of the Lower Greensand Formation, represented by Hythe Beds overlying Atherﬁeld Clay, at between 46 and 43 m. OD. To the south, the Lower Greensand Formation falls away, exposing the underlying Weald Clay, between the 45 and 40 m. OD contour, before being overlain by alluvial deposits along the valley of the East Stour, at approximately 38 m. OD. Although no previous archaeological works have been undertaken within the proposed development

area, the region is known for its high archaeological potential. Spot finds of residual worked flints of Mesolithic (c. 10,000–4,000 B.C.) and Neolithic (c. 4,000–2,350 B.C.) date have been identified in a number of locations to the north and west. Excavations to the south, at Boys Hall Moat (O.A.U. 1993) and Waterbrook Farm (Rady 1999), and to the north at Boys Hall Road (M.O.L.A.S. 2002), and west of Blind Lane (M.O.L.A.S. 1998b; O.A.U. 1999) have all produced evidence indicative of Neolithic and/or Bronze Age activity (c. 4,000–700 B.C.). Parts of a mid to late Iron Age (c. 300–50 B.C.) enclosure, immediately west of the proposed development area, were identified by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit (Philp 1990; 1991, 74–75; Willson 1990). Contemporary features, perhaps associated with this enclosure, were identified at Crowbridge Road, sealed by colluvial soils (Rady 2000b). Continuity of occupation during the later preRoman Iron Age and early Roman period (c. 100 B.C.–A.D. 200) is indicated to the south and west of the proposed development area, including evidence

of settlement both at South Willesborough (P.C.A. 2001) and at Waterbrook Farm (Rady 1999), with evidence of associated field systems. Evidence for occupation closer to the proposed development area was observed during rescue excavations within the site of the Orbital Park (Willson 1990; Philp 1990, 1991), and at Boys Hall Moat (Booth and Everson 1994), including a small cluster of cremation burials (O.A.U. 2000). Evaluation less than 20 m. south of the proposed development area, in advance of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link works, identified a concentration of features, including narrow ditches of Romano-British date, aligned towards the proposed development area (M.O.L.A.S. 1997). Occupation of all these sites does not appear to have extended beyond the early third century A.D. The parish of Sevington is first documented in a charter of the mid ninth century A.D. (Sawyer 1968; Cross 1990) and some archaeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon date (c. A.D. 410–1065), perhaps the components of an inhumation burial, has been found at Willesborough (Weekes 2005). By the time of Domesday in 1086 the manor of Seivetone is recorded as including ploughland (about 100 acres), meadow (about 8 acres), a mill, a church and priest, a villager and six smallholders; the latter probably located east of the proposed development area, in the northern half of the parish, centred on the church of St Mary (Cross 1990). Boys Hall Moat was founded in the mid thirteenth century, the first apparent documentary evidence of the manor dated to A.D. 1253 (Booth and Everson 1994). Evaluation in 1990 reported two areas of medieval activity (Willson 1990) within the Orbital Park and near the moat, including a series of southwest to north-east aligned ditches, pits and general soil deposits, with a date range of approximately 1250–1350. Further evidence for medieval ditches associated with Boys Hall Moat are indicated on aerial photographs of the area taken in 1961 and 1989. These show a continuation of the south-eastern boundary of the moat enclosure to the north-west, in addition to later field ditches (Weekes 2005). To the north-west of the proposed development area, medieval occupation is recorded at Boys Hall Road, including further linear features and pits dated to the twelfth and fourteenth centuries (M.O.L.A.S. 1997), and to the north of the proposed development area the remains of a structure and associated features dated c. 1175–1250 (M.O.L.A.S. 2002). Other medieval remains were recorded to the south-east of the proposed development area, comprising ditches and possible beam slots for two buildings of late twelfth- or thirteenth-century date (M.O.L.A.S. 1998a), a pit containing pottery dated c.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Aerial view.

Detailof late prehistoric beam slots and post-holes forming potential timber structure, looking west. Scale 0.5 m.

1150/75–1200 (Cross 1990), an enclosure possibly relating to a late medieval building, and ditches and a structure of unknown function at Waterbrook Farm (Rady 1999). Boys Hall Moat was unoccupied from 1632 (Weekes 2005). Survey of the moat earthworks indicate that they were modified during the early post-medieval period into formal gardens (Booth and Everson 1994), and some evidence for these in the form of spreads of ragstone, a section of wall, and the possible ragstone base of a pond were located during evaluation between the moat and the southern boundary of the proposed development area (M.O.L.A.S. 1997). The earthworks survived intact until the 1840s when the northern part of the moat was dissected by the construction of the Ashford to Folkestone line of the South Eastern Railway in 1842–43. Examination of historical maps indicated that the proposed development area has remained undeveloped since the tithe map of 1838, the site being shown as open arable land. Fifteen trenches, averaging 20 m. long by 2 m. wide, were excavated. All fifteen trenches contained significant archaeology. Due to the limited time and budget, only a selective sample of features and deposits could be characterised. A small number of finds, including pottery, burnt flint, worked flint, daub and a fragment of a rectangular shaped tufa stone, were recovered from the excavated samples. The pottery was almost entirely Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in date (c. 900–50 B.C.), with a sherd of late Anglo-Saxon or early medieval local Ashford

sandy ware (c. A.D. 850–1050/1250) being the exception. The spatial distribution of features indicates that early activity was concentrated in the southern (trenches 1, 2 and 3) and northern (trenches 11, 13, 14 and 15) central portions of the proposed development area. Archaeological features within the southern area included stratified features and deposits representing multi-phased occupation. This included linear features, probably forming early field and boundary ditches (trenches 1, 2 and 3), occupation deposits (trenches 1 and 2), and rubbish pits (trenches 1 and 2). Postholes forming a rough, north-east to south-west alignment, running parallel to a ditch (trench 1) are likely to represent the alignment of a fenced enclosure. In addition, two ground-beam slots (trench 2), in association with three post-holes, probably formed the south-west corner of a timber structure, the west facing side of which had a visible length of 2.92 m. Features focused to the north also included field or boundary ditches (trenches 13, 14 and 15), along with concentrated pit groupings (trenches 11, 13, 14 and 15), as well as isolated post-holes (trench 14). A broad shallow linear feature (trench 9), aligned north to south, with a surviving width of 4.78 m. traversed the centre of the proposed development area, perhaps representing a former trackway between the two observed activity areas, to its north and south. Environmental sampling of the excavated features and deposits identified small quantities of poorly preserved charred cereal grain and seeds, in addition

The former late prehistoric trackway, aligned north–south, looking south-west.

to cattle and sheep/goat bones; both indicative of a domestic mixed-agricultural economy typical of later prehistoric settlements. A possible buried soil, between 0.21–0.30 m. thick was identified in the southern and central portion of the proposed development area (trenches 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9). This subsoil sealed later prehistoric features. Previous work at Crowbridge Road (Rady 2000b) and on the adjacent J2 Orbital Park site (Found 2005) both identified similar deposits. These have been interpreted as colluvium, associated with soil erosion on the valley of the East Stour, from the late prehistoric period onwards. Activity within the proposed development area appears to have resumed from the early medieval period onwards. Features were limited to field boundaries and drains, focused in the west (trenches 4, 5, 8, 10, and 13) and east (7 and 12) of the proposed development area. None of these features could be dated with certainty, the single sherd of late Anglo-Saxon or early medieval pottery provides the only dated material. It is possible these features relate to a field system, either predating or contemporary with the occupation of Boys Hall Moat. The excavation was directed by the author, with the assistance of Dale Robertson. Finds were processed by Jacqui Lawrence, and environmental samples were processed by Dr Enid Allison, with the assistance of Jessica Twyman. Thanks are extended to Adam Single, Heritage Conservation Group, Kent County Council, and Ian Courtneidge of Henry Riley.

The proposed development area, looking north-east.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

18 Holborough Quarry, Snodland 570300m.

570250m.

570200m.

570150m.

Damien Boden

162400m.

HQS/EX/05

162350m.

HQS/EX/04

162300m.

HQS/EX/06

Between November 2005 and April 2006 further work was undertaken at Holborough Quarry, Snodland (centred on TQ 7025 6235). The work involved open excavation of two additional areas of the corn field located on the western side of the quarry workings, a geological investigation of the underlying subsoils and a watching brief of the general area. This work followed earlier evaluation and excavation on the site (Helm 2004; Boden 2005). The area of the corn field lies on what was the eastern slope of Holborough Hill which has since the earlier twentieth century been subject to extensive chalk quarrying for the cement industry. This quarrying activity has effectively obliterated the hill and with it two funerary monuments of Bronze Age and Roman date together with an extensive Anglo-Saxon cemetery. The majority of the new development planned for Holborough is located within the quarry pit itself and therefore posed no threat to any surviving archaeological resource. However, apart from a small area of disturbance along the quarry edge and the construction and removal of a number of electricity pylons, the area of the corn field remained largely undisturbed. The results of the 2004 excavations demonstrated the presence of prehistoric activity across the proposed development site with a concentration

m 13

m 14

15m

16m

17m

50m.

of features or focus for that activity located toward the western side of the corn field area. This activity consisted of groupings of post-holes and stakeholes representing ten or so circular, subcircular and rectangular structures, probably four post granaries and drying racks, domestic and probable industrial refuse pits and other features such as ovens, storage pits and small furnaces associated with bronzeworking. Two ditch lines were also present; an east–west aligned northern ditch and a slightly curvilinear, segmented feature which bisected the site from north to south. Both features were rather narrow and shallow and possibly served as settlement divisions, perhaps domestic/industrial, rather than a boundary. No further ditches were identified within the area investigated which suggests that this was an open settlement with no associated enclosure or well-defined boundaries. An initial examination of the pottery and other cultural material recovered during this earlier work would suggest a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date for this activity, although a very small number of pot sherds of Mid to Late Iron Age and Early Roman date were also recovered. Further evidence of metalworking was also recovered with an almost complete although fragmentary baked clay sword mould of Ewart Park type c. 850–750 B.C., recovered

from a large pit, with other smaller fragments of clay mould for the manufacture of other objects recovered from a number of smaller features. Several cremation burials deposited in simple pits were also identified; four of these may represent a westward continuation of the boundary represented by the southernmost segmented ditch, with the other burials forming a very diffuse cemetery toward the southern end of the site. The 2005 excavation was located adjacent to the western side of the 2004 area and was carried out under the direction of Dr Richard Helm after the removal and relocation of badgers and other fauna which had occupied the area. Here as in other areas investigated a large number of post-holes, stakeholes and pits were identified. Three cremation burials deposited in small pits were also identified amongst the post-holes at the southern end of this strip area which may show that there was no clear distinction between ‘living’ and ‘deceased’ areas of the settlement which had been suggested by the results of the 2004 excavations (Boden 2005) and the excavations carried out on a similarly dated site at Shelford Farm, Canterbury (Boden and Rady 2003). The majority of the post-holes were grouped toward the south-eastern corner of the strip area and formed a number of subcircular or rectangular structures, elements of which had identified in the earlier excavation. A further group of post-holes was identified toward the north of the area, and here as in other areas of the site, a large subcircular structure or phases of structure is represented. The majority of the pits were small and shallow although several measured some 2 m. across and possessed depths of nearly 0.50 m.. Most of these features contained animal bone, pottery, fragments of daub and other cultural material and are probably refuse pits associated with the structures and represent domestic occupation rather than industry. The absence of metalworking evidence in this area reinforces the suggestion that domestic and industrial areas were separated by the segmented ditch D2 identified earlier (Boden 2005). The remaining area of the corn field was stripped of topsoil and other modern overburden during the spring of 2006 and further archaeological features were identified in the south-western corner of the site. As with the other areas investigated a large number of post- and stake-holes were present together with pits, short lengths of ditch and gully and a small furnace probably associated with bronzeworking. The majority of these features were of later Bronze Age–Early Iron Age origin although a number of later Mid to Late Iron Age and Roman pottery sherds were recovered from a number of the features. Unlike the features identified during the 2005 excavation, which were associated with the main area of activity uncovered during the 2004 work, the features in this area appear to belong to a separate focus of activity, and possibly represent a later phase of occupation, perhaps towards the middle of the Iron Age period and extending into the earlier Roman period.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

In addition to the archaeological work a geological investigation of the underlying subsoils was carried out by Dr Peter Allen a quaternary geologist. At several locations in the Holborough area, notably Pring’s Quarry, Upper Halling (Cruse 1985), and at Halling (Kerney 1971), palaeosoils of Pleistocene

origin have been identified, and it was considered probable that similar deposits may be present on the corn field site. Four machine cut test pits were excavated along the western side of the strip area which identified a very dynamic sequence of periglacial deposits overlying the solid chalk bedrock.

Probable terrace gravels were also identiﬁed toward the northern side of the site and ancient/buried soils underlying and sealing the archaeological horizon were observed, particularly toward the southwestern corner of the site.

19 Church Street, Hoo St Werburgh Richard Helm

View of St Werburgh Church from proposed development area, looking south-east.

During September 2005 archaeological evaluation at No. 28 Church Street, Hoo St Werburgh (NGR 578282 171864) was undertaken on behalf of Gillcrest Homes, who had obtained planning consent for a residential development. The proposed development area is located at the southern end of Hoo St Werburgh, forming a roughly L-shaped plot, approximately 0.7 hectares in area, adjacent to St Werburgh’s Church. The land is occupied by a former residential building fronting Church Street, with adjacent outhouses, gardens and fruit orchard, located to the rear. The surrounding topography forms a gentle down slope towards the Medway estuary, approximately 0.6 km. to the south-east, with a dry valley transecting the site, aligned roughly east to west. The underlying geology comprises brickearths, with tertiary sand and gravel terrace deposits in the south, sealing London Clay over Thanet Beds. Evidence for prehistoric, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon activity is well documented from the surrounding area. The earliest remains include two Palaeolithic (c. 500,000–150,000 B.C.) handaxes and four ﬂint ﬂakes recovered from a gravel pit located some 390 m. south of the proposed development area, and two clusters of Late Bronze Age (c. 1100–700 B.C.) features, exposed during

ANNUAL REPORT 30

the construction of a pipeline trench, between 90 m. and 150 m. south of the proposed development area (Moore 2002). Features here included linear ditches and pits, containing briquetage vessels and perforated clay tablets in association with large quantities of burnt flint (perhaps indicating salt production) and an isolated pit containing quantities of charred grain, with pea and bean fragments, suggesting domestic storage and cooking activities. Romano-British (A.D. 43–410) occupation of the area is indicated by both building remains and a cemetery, focused to the south-west of Hoo St Werburgh, possibly associated with pottery manufacture, exploiting the local clay resources. A few Romano-British features were found during the construction of the pipeline, including a possible field ditch, pits and large concentrations of roof, flue and possible hypocaust tiles, suggesting that a substantial Roman villa-type structure existed close to the site (Moore 2002). Documentary sources record the granting of land at Hoo to the monastery at Peterborough in A.D. 664, and a nunnery was subsequently founded here by Werburgh, the daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia, between A.D. 686 and 697. Werburgh died in 700 and was later canonised. In c. 741 King Ethelbard of

Mercia, a cousin of St Werburgh, founded a church dedicated to St Werburgh and Hoo became the focus of a large estate documented as Werburgh Wic, a royal residence and prosperous town (Moore 2002). The nunnery is last referenced in c. A.D. 840, and it is likely that Werburgh Wic was destroyed during intermittent Viking raids in 844–5, 857 and 1017 (Brooks 1989; Moore 2002). The nunnery’s location is not known (Ward 1935). Whilst the existing church is dedicated to St Werburgh, and is partly built with re-used Roman brick and tile, there is no surviving evidence for an Anglo-Saxon foundation. Immediately south of the proposed development area, evidence for early to middle Anglo-Saxon (c. A.D. 410–850) settlement was excavated during construction of the pipe line trench. This consisted of a post-built structure, which may have been contained within an enclosure represented by two groups of north–south aligned ditches, located to its east and west. Finds included a small number of continental imports, indicative of a relatively high status settlement, perhaps conﬁrmation of the nearby existence of Werburgh Wic. During the evaluation, twelve trenches were excavated, demonstrating a comparable distribution of archaeological features surviving within the proposed development area. The earliest

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

Evaluation trench cutting south-facing slope of dry valley, showing early medieval pit (foreground) and post-medieval metalled surface (background), looking south. Scales 1 m.

archaeological features consisted of two pits, both of which could be attributed to the late Bronze Age period (c. 1100–700 B.C.), and a low-density scatter of residual worked flints. A possible Romano-British ditch (c. A.D. 43–410) was exposed at the southern end of the site, probably a continuation of the field ditch identified in the pipe trench to the south. A significant find was the remains of a possible kiln or oven base, identified in the south-west corner of the site. Only the base of the feature survived, forming a shallow concave bowl, 1.49 m. square by 0.21 m. deep, characterised by at least seven sequentially burnt clay linings, each between 0.02– 0.05 m. thick, in places vitrified from the intense heat. A single sherd of early to middle Anglo-Saxon (c. A.D. 575–750) pottery was recovered from the upper fill of this feature, providing a very tentative terminus ante quem. Due to the limited nature of the evaluation works, the feature was not excavated, and no surrounding features, attributable to a building structure were observed. Early medieval features were recorded in the north of the proposed development area, located above the dry valley. These consisted of three pits, all with in situ burning observed around their edges, a rubbish- or cess-pit, and an east–west aligned ditch. Pottery from these features shared a date range of c. A.D. 1050–1250. Bulk soil samples were collected from all of the excavated early medieval features. Several produced assemblages of carbonised cereal remains and associated crop weeds, as well as charred hazelnut shell. Fragments of six species of edible marine molluscs were recovered from the early medieval features, in addition to fish bones, providing the potential for better understanding the exploitation of local fisheries and marine resources. In addition, features contained the well-preserved bone of pig, cattle, sheep/goat, horse and domestic fowl; the assemblage demonstrating evidence for both butchery and hornworking. Evidence for metalworking was also indicated, with a total 114 g. of ferrous residue collected, including slag and hammerscale.

Excavation of evaluation trench 1 in progress, with Romano-British ditch exposed, looking west.

Activity continued into the late medieval period (c. 1250–1550), with features located in the north of the area consisting of two rubbish-pits and a north-west to south-east aligned field ditch, and a pit containing an articulated pig skeleton, located to the south. During the post-medieval period further rubbish-pits were cut in the north-east of the proposed development area, fronting Church Street to the east. In addition, a series of well-made metalled surfaces were identified. These were constructed on a bedding layer of crushed chalk, and formed with flint gravels and ragstone. The northern edge of this sequence was defined by three courses of unfrogged, hand-made bricks, bounded by ragstone blocks. The bricks are likely to have derived from the local Hoo Brickworks which was located to the south. The metalled surfaces were located along the base of the dry valley, which formed a natural routeway. Pottery

General view of post-medieval metalled courtyard or track, located at the base of the dry valley, looking south. Scale 0.5 m.

indicated that these surfaces were contemporary with the buildings shown on the 1840 tithe map, and the ﬁrst edition Ordnance Survey map, dated 1870. These structures, presumably agricultural sheds and barns, were located either side of the metalled surfaces, which would have formed a track or courtyard associated with the farm. The work was directed by the author, with the assistance of Ian Anderson and Ben Found. Finds were processed by Jacqui Lawrence, and environmental samples were processed by Dr Enid Allison with the assistance of Jessica Twyman. Thanks are also extended to Martin Wood and Alan Burns, Gillcrest Homes; David Britchﬁeld, Heritage Conservation Group, Kent County Council; Derrick Shepherd of EDF Energy, and the members of St Werburgh’s Church.

Late nineteenth-century photograph showing the former farmhouse within the proposed development area.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

FIELDWORK: KENT SITES

View of proposed development area, from St Werburgh church tower.

20 Claxﬁeld Farm, Lynsted

Rebecca Newhook and Grant Shand

During May and June 2005 a two - stage archaeological investigation was carried out on land at Claxfield Farm, Lynsted (TQ 947 622) destined for brickearth extraction to supply the brickmaking works of Smeed-Dean in Sittingbourne. Extraction is to take place progressively on an annual basis for the next ten years. The site under investigation was approximately 300 m. long and 19 m. wide. Mesolithic and Palaeolithic remains have been located within the brickearth a short distance to the west of the site, near Bapchild (Dines 1928; 1929). Finds or evidence of occupation and settlement from these periods are very rare occurrences in Kent and regionally. The site lies near the southern side of the Canterbury to Rochester stretch of Roman Watling Street. A small number of medieval and post-medieval timber-framed buildings lay within a 500 m. radius of the site. The investigations formed two phases of work. The first included the supervision of the removal of the topsoil to expose the surface of the brickearth and to map, record and investigate any archaeological remains revealed, whilst the second phase of work consisted of an intermittent watching brief during consequent extraction of brickearth. A Quaternary geologist was present during the second phase of work when a 4 m. high section through the subsoil was observed, in which five deposits were distinguished. The lowest strata consisted of coombe rock, made up of rounded chalk clasts up to 0.03 m. in diameter set in a chalky matrix. The deposition of this deposit is commonly associated with down-slope movement during intensely cold (periglacial) conditions. The coombe rock was overlaid by coombe deposits comprised of reworked Thanet Beds, fine to medium sand resting on scattered Bullhead Bed flints. This deposit had a maximum thickness of 0.60 m. to the south. The bedded nature of this deposit suggested deposition by incremental layers of slopewash or possibly by running water. It was from this horizon that the majority of the Palaeolithic artefacts were recovered from the investigations in Bapchild. Three limon (brickearth) units followed, composed of a mix of clay, silt and fine sand generally thought to have been deposited by slopewash or by the wind.

ANNUAL REPORT 30

The lowest limon unit had a maximum thickness of 0.80 m. and was yellow brown in colour with chalk granules less than 0.05 m. in diameter and occasional large flints up to 0.10 m. in diameter. The junction between the limon with chalk granules and the overlying layer, limon à doublets, was marked by a discontinuous concentration of flint gravel up to 0.06 m in diameter. The doublets comprised slightly lighter and darker bands and had been deformed since deposition with a maximum thickness of 1.10 m. The change from deformed to undeformed doublets indicated that there was a break in deposition during which the lower bands within the doublets were deformed before the resumption of deposition. This is only the second site in Britain in which a positive identification of the limon à doublets has been made, the first being at Bapchild (Dines 1928). The uppermost limon unit was dark yellow brown with a maximum thickness of 1.50 m. and showed no indication of bedding. Three archaeological features were exposed and investigated after the topsoil was removed.

A fire-pit was identified at the south end of the site, the edges of which were heavily burnt to a dark red orange colour and to black in places. An accumulated deposit of ash lay across the base of the feature. The lack of any vitrified glassy or metallic residues on the side walls of the pit or metalworking debris or other artefacts in the fill suggests the pit was not used for any industrial activity. Fire-pits like this are generally indistinguishable from the Mesolithic to the medieval period, so it could not be dated with any confidence. Two sheep burials were located in the central areas that were of recent date. Pottery, metal and wire from the backfill suggested they were buried in the twentieth century. Despite the lack of archaeological materials and features identified during this phase of extraction, the potential for archaeological remains surviving from the prehistoric period onwards in the area of Claxfield Farm and being uncovered during future brickearth extraction, remains high.

Recording the geological sequence.

FIELDWORK: OTHER SITES INVESTIGATED DURING THE YEAR

OTHER SITES INVESTIGATED DURING THE YEAR

Aylesford, Aylesford Technical School Aylesham, 6 Market Place Benenden, Hempstead Forest Bobbing, St Bartholomew’s Church Broadstairs, North Foreland Road Broadstairs, Rumsfield Water Tower Canterbury, Canterbury College Canterbury, St George’s Place Canterbury, St Peter’s Methodist School Canterbury, 12 Station Road West Chatham, Amherst Hill Croydon, 23a-25b Russell Hill, Purley Davington, Barnfield Road Denton, Lydden Hill Dover, Western Heights Folkestone, Park Farm Road Folkestone, St Eanswythe C of E Primary School Gravesend, 4–5 Town Pier Great Mongeham, Pixhill Cottage Hawkinge, Aerodrome Road Hawkinge, Haven Drive Ickham, The Old Rectory Lamberhurst, High Street Littlebourne, Polo Farm Sports Club Margate, Northdown Primary School Margate, Sea Bathing Hospital Meopham. Meopham School Milton Regis, Crown Road Minster, Isle of Sheppey, 144 Minster Road Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Plover Road New Romney, The Elms, Dymchurch Road Otford, Frog Farm Otford, 32 Greenhill Road Ramsgate, Haine Road Ripple, Sutton Road Rochester, 142 High Street Sandgate, 2 Castle Road Sandwich, Fisher Gate Sevington, Orbital Park Snodland, Holmesdale Technical College Sturry, 6 High Street Sutton Valence, Sutton Valence School West Malling, 123–129 High Street West Malling, Kingshill, Heath Farm Whitfield, Old Park Wrotham, Invicta Business Park 44

Part of a photogrammetric survey of the war memorial in Canterbury’s Buttermarket, undertaken by Andrew Savage and Rupert Austin for Canterbury City Council.

This section gives a list of some of the many sites investigated in the period April 2005 to March 2006, but where very little or no archaeological evidence was encountered.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

BUILDING RECORDING A ‘Boots the Chemist’, Nos 9–11 Mercery Lane and 5–7 The Parade, Canterbury Rupert Austin and Sheila Sweetinburgh

Boots the Chemist began trading from their Grade II listed Canterbury premises on the corner of Mercery Lane and the Parade (TR 1497 5780) in the late 1920s. They traded there for over seventy-ﬁve years until they relocated to the new Whitefriars shopping complex in 2005. Their former premises comprise the remains of two medieval buildings with a documented history that extends back to the mid twelfth century, but a full study of the property had never been undertaken. Boots were keen to sell their old premises, and began preparing a dossier for presentation to potential buyers. The dossier required an archaeological assessment of the property, as the presence of historic fabric would have implications for its future redevelopment and the Trust was commissioned to carry out this assessment including a documentary study by Sheila Sweetinburgh. The former Boots store is of considerable size, occupying a plot of nearly 700 square metres. Five separate structures, which at one time accommodated eight separate premises, stand on the site, but the Boots store initially occupied only the three premises within the prominent corner property. The site lies at possibly the most important crossroads in medieval Canterbury (see also p. 50 below). Mercery Lane, one of Canterbury’s most picturesque and narrow thoroughfares, leads off from this crossroads to form the north-west boundary of the site. It leads to the

ANNUAL REPORT 30

cathedral, and many pilgrims, including members of the royal household and aristocracy, would have passed down it, some ﬁnding accommodation at the great Cheker of the Hope and Crown inns on the other side of Mercery Lane. The name is indicative of the street’s importance. Even during its zenith in the Middle Ages, Canterbury was not a large city, meaning that there were generally no craft enclaves, like those to be found in the larger cities of London and York. As a result streets were frequently named after prominent local residents, rather than a craft, but there are exceptions, and The Mercery is one of these, with the east side of the street home to several mercers in the late twelfth century. These men were extremely prosperous, and it seems likely that their buildings would have matched their social and economic status, though nothing of these early properties now remains above ground. Land ownership is also indicative of the importance of this location. As we shall see, all the plots here were acquired by the two great monastic houses of Christ Church Priory or St Augustine’s Abbey during the Middle Ages. Together these extremely wealthy houses controlled a large proportion of the city’s real estate, allowing them to have a marked influence on the commercial development of Canterbury. Successive priors continued to develop their interests, especially in the central parishes such

as St Andrew’s. They constructed, for example, a number of inns in the area, possibly as lodgings for pilgrims but also for the army of workers involved in extensive construction projects such as those on the cathedral and city defences. Land ownership in Canterbury changed signiﬁcantly after the religious and political upheavals of the mid sixteenth century, the priory’s holdings seemingly passing intact to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral. For the city and cathedral authorities this area retained its importance, partly as a source of revenue, but more through its value as a desirable residential and retail area. This seems to have held true over the next few centuries, the area being home to relatively genteel professions such as booksellers, stationers and goldsmiths, though the premises of several butchers lay close by in Butchery Lane. The subdivision of many properties in the eighteenth century also affected the character of the area, but unlike some parts of town, this did not lead to the creation of poor densely populated squares and alleyways. Instead, the locality appears to have maintained its middle class status, its residents continuing to live and trade at the numerous small shops and other premises. In part this was presumably due to the proximity of the cathedral and its community of clerics and other members of the professional classes. The proliferation of small family businesses in property mainly rented from the Dean and Chapter, but also some freehold units, may though have led to a decline in the physical state of the housing stock at this time. One possible explanation is the Dean and Chapter’s unwillingness or inability to undertake proper maintenance, perhaps because the rents it received had seemingly become fossilized by this time. This slide into decay of one of the most picturesque locations in the city was halted in the inter-war years of the twentieth century after concern grew among certain sections of the local populace and the council that the city was in danger of losing its

BUILDING RECORDING

medieval heritage. Boots played an important part in stemming this decay, and their considerable efforts to save and renovate their corner premises were applauded by the local press.

Documentary history None of the structures that now occupy the site appear to predate the ﬁfteenth century, but investigation of the early history of the site, from the mid twelfth century, proved a worthwhile if difﬁcult task, as the present arrangement owes much to the footprints of now demolished buildings. It seems that in the mid twelfth century Christ Church Priory owned the corner plot, upon which stood the house, and stone cellar, of Salomon the mercer. A rental of c. 1200 shows the plot to extend for 30 feet along The Parade and 48 feet along Mercery Lane, dimensions that are almost identical to those recorded on the 1912 Goad insurance map for 7 The Parade and 9 & 10 Mercery Lane. Salomon paid 20s. in rent to the monks for the plot and 13d. for the cellar. The orientation of the plot suggests any structure standing on it faced Mercery Lane rather than The Parade. Salomon also rented the adjacent plot to the southeast [later 6a The Parade], from Gregory and Simon de Kenefelde, before they sold it to Prior Wibert,

and his house may therefore have extended over two plots. Certainly by the early thirteenth century the priory treasurers treated them together in the rentals, referring to them as ‘the two lands from the corner of the Mercery to the stone house of Robert the chamberlain’. Hervey the chamberlain held the next plot [No. 6 The Parade] and Matilda, the wife of Gerald, the one after that [No. 5 The Parade]. Matilda’s son, Robert the chamberlain, inherited her holding, later acquiring Hervey’s plot for a combined rent of 3d. According to a c. 1200 rental the combined plots measured 60 feet along The Parade and 100 feet from the street to the rear boundary, but Robert’s stone house seems to have occupied only the south-west part of the holding. The corner plot which Salomon rented extended 48 feet along Mercery Lane, and it is conceivable his house covered the whole plot, because he also held the adjoining ground to the north-east [No. 11 Mercery Lane], which was said to be next to his capital messuage in a later charter made by his daughter. This plot may have extended at least 40 feet along the lane [Nos 11, 12 and 13 Mercery Lane], and was recorded as being part of the tenement of Robert son of Richard, who rented it for 6s. 8d. per year. Salomon’s daughter and heir was Cecilia. Her marriage to William Silvester resulted in the couple

controlling a considerable property portfolio in St Andrew’s parish. Cecilia and her husband, like her father before her, lived and traded from the corner house. Her husband’s death marked an important turning point for this corner of Canterbury, as Cecilia then began to relinquish some of her capital assets, gifting to the priory her rights in the land that is now No. 6a The Parade, and selling to John Turte, for 60s., her rights to the annual rent she received from the land that is now No. 11 Mercery Lane. John Turte would later give this to St Augustine’s Abbey. This trend was soon followed by other land holders, the abbey acquiring, by gift or otherwise, further properties along Mercery Lane, the priory further properties along the Parade, until the holdings of these two ecclesiastical houses dominated the two streets. Unfortunately none of the houses so far discussed survived the later reconstructions of the various premises. The history of the site proved difﬁcult to follow in the late medieval period, the priory’s rentals listing, for example, only the names of the tenants and the rents they paid (or those in arrears), meaning that it is well nigh impossible to match tenants to shops or houses. St Augustine’s Abbey records proved equally difﬁcult, but by the middle of the sixteenth century the situation improves and it is possible, for example, to draw up a tentative chronology

Section A–A through Mercery Lane properties.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

of the lease holders and some of the occupiers of No. 11 Mercery Lane. These included a variety of occupants that included goldsmiths, two aldermen, and a bookseller. The corner property does not appear to have belonged to the Dean and Chapter in the mid sixteenth century, and must have been lost by the priory before the Reformation, but it is not known when. By the 1730s it was occupied by Margaret Fenner, widow of Enoch Fenner, bookseller and stationer of St Andrew’s parish. Enoch’s place was presumably also the corner tenement. An inventory of his possessions makes interesting reading, revealing something of the layout of his house, but it is the inventory of his shop that is the most exciting, as this provides clues about his clientele. Such inventories are rare outside London, that here giving an insight into the cultural reading habits of Canterbury’s professional classes. A considerable proportion of his books were theological and service books, presumably catering for the large community of clerics in the neighbouring cathedral precincts, and at the many parish churches in Canterbury. Most of the cathedral clergy were university trained, which meant that they were also interested in medicine, the natural sciences, and the classics. The professional classes in Canterbury also probably patronised Fenner’s shop, buying similar volumes, but who purchased books such as ‘Cleopatra a Romance’, ‘Sterling’s Plays’, ‘Burton of Malencholly’ and ‘Starings Marriners Magazine’? His stock also included cartoons, battle pieces, maps, prints and over £100 of stationery items. Margaret seems to have continued the business, her son-in-law Thomas Smith acquiring the corner property upon her death ten years later. He also traded as a bookseller, remaining there, it would seem, for several decades, being succeeded by another bookseller William Bristow, who was the occupier in 1800. Thus the proprietors of the corner tenement were booksellers for more than a century and possibly longer. A large tenement and garden, belonging to the Dean and Chapter, lay to the south-east of the corner property [Nos 6a, 6 and 5], at the time of the 1649 Parliamentary Survey. This was held by William Robinson, and comprised two shops on the street with little rooms behind, a parlour, kitchen, hall, three chambers, two garrets, a little room in the yard below stairs and three rooms above, a stable, a hayloft and a little yard. By 1774 the premises had seen a steady stream of occupants that included a cordwainer, a local leather cutter, a baker and a butcher. At this time the lease was divided into two parts, and before the end of the eighteenth century a watchmaker, a second family of butchers, a victualler and lastly a printer had traded from here. By the mid nineteenth century it proved relatively easy to ascertain who held the various shops that would become Boots the Chemist. The corner tenement [Nos 7 The Parade and 9 Mercery Lane] was a jewellery business in 1868, the proprietor being William Trimnell. A watchmaker took over in the early 1890s but by 1919 the shop was called Thomas Becket Ltd. jewellers. They seem to have been bought out by Boots in 1928 along with Mrs

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Meers’ tea room at No. 9a Mercery Lane. The property was in an extremely poor state when Boots arrived. Council officers seriously considered demolition, but the building was saved by Boots’ willingness to fund an extensive reconstruction programme. The resultant store was able to provide its customers with a range of services, from the surgical department in the basement to the spacious library lounge on the first floor. Without knowing it, the Boots library lounge kept alive a tradition of book selling on the premises that had lasted, with interruptions, for over 250 years. Unfortunately the library was lost in 1959–60. John Gibbons Jackson had a tailoring and hat business at No. 6a The Parade in 1868, a later member of his family returning to the premises in the mid 1920s. Interestingly the Jacksons also had a shop at No.10 Mercery Lane at this time that was apparently linked, possibly even physically, to their Parade premises thereby enclosing the corner tenement. The Jacksons traded here until after the Second World War when Taylor Bros, corn merchants took over. Boots purchased the two premises from Taylor Bros in the mid 1950s, thereby doubling their sales area. They made alterations at this time, but as before took great care over the work, remodelling and matching for example the windows and other fittings of the two frontages to those of their corner tenement. Continuity of trade also seems to have been the hallmark of No. 5 The Parade between 1860 and 1935. The place was initially held by T. Saunders, a general draper then Marchant & Sons, tailors and outfitters, who were joined by Mr Tubb in the 1880s. Marchant & Tubb traded until the early 1930s before they were taken over by London Outfitters Ltd. Timothy Whites, who had been trading next door, at No. 6, since 1927, acquired the property from them and as a result were able, in the late 1930s, to redevelop the two plots, erecting a purpose built store. A chemist called J.R. Hall occupied No. 11 Mercery Lane in 1868. His successor, Edwin Biggleston, was in the same business, but by the early 1920s the premises were in the hands of Reeves Bros, bootmakers. They traded here for several decades before the shop became Lotus & Delta Ltd then Canterbury Sewing Machine Services. In 1978 Boots purchased the freehold of the premises along with that of No. 10 Mercery lane. By the early 1990s they had also acquired No. 6a The Parade, from the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society, and Nos 5 and 6 from Timothy Whites, and so had consolidated their ownership of the whole block.

Nos 9–9a Mercery Lane and 7 The Parade Nos 9–9a Mercery Lane and No. 7 The Parade lie within the Grade II listed building that occupies the corner plot. This three-storey structure is the most prominent element of the Boots former premises, containing a medieval timber-framed building, of probable ﬁfteenth-century date, at its core. Later plaster now conceals its timbered upper ﬂoors, but they remain jettied along both frontages, betraying

Medieval dragon beam and joists within the corner of No. 9 Mercery Lane.

the building’s medieval origins from the street. The structure is rectangular in plan, measuring approximately 21.5 m. along Mercery Lane and 27 m. along The Parade. The documentary study suggested the building may once have extended further into Mercery Lane, occupying No. 10. As has already been described, the building was in poor condition when Boots took over in the 1920s, but they admirably elected to undertake an ambitious and costly restoration. The firm’s own architect, Mr Percy J. Bartlett A.R.I.B.A. was responsible for preparing the plans and the building’s appearance today is largely a result of his work undertaken 1931. The Gazette records, though, that the building had already undergone many drastic alterations before Boots’ campaign, and ‘did not represent the best example of fifteenth-century work’. It is not surprising, therefore, that our survey found very little of the original medieval structure. Boots replaced the old shop fronts with a unified design in a faux historic style. They removed mathematical tiling from the upper floors and plastered the elevations, something they presumably considered historically more appropriate, and replaced sash windows with ‘oak windows more approximating to the period of the structure’. The elevations were finished off with a parapet and decorated lead frieze. Bartlett’s work is of good quality but mixes historic styles in a rather disconcerting manner. The presence of several exposed medieval posts and brackets, beneath the second floor jetty, shows the upper elevations still retain some original medieval timber. The interior was extensively remodelled at this time, particularly at ground level (see below), which was opened up to form a single retail space. Any medieval fabric that had survived here until this point was removed. The medieval joists and beams that lay above the ground floor shops, for example, were replaced with new oak joists, supported by steel beams (clad in oak), all arranged to resemble the original floor. The dragon-post at the corner of the property is perhaps the only surviving medieval timber, albeit now perhaps reset. However, beneath the building there are three cellars, and within them several interesting medieval features (A–A). Two of the cellars lie directly below the ground floor. One of these lies alongside Mercery Lane and is clearly of medieval origin. The documentary study showed the present building’s predecessor, the house of Salomon the mercer, to be cellared, and this cellar may have been his.

BUILDING RECORDING

Detail of vaulted cellar under No. 9a Mercery Lane.

The cellar measures approximately 11 m. long by 3.4 m. wide. The walls are of knapped ﬂint and it does not seem to have been vaulted, but ceiled by joists and beams. The remains of four splayed cellar lights, with Caen stone jambs, lie within the north-west wall and rebates for shutters survive within two of the openings. In medieval times street level would have lain roughly where it is today and the cellar lights must have opened into light wells. A wide segmental Caen stone arch lies at the south-west end of the wall. Surprisingly this is blind (it never led anywhere) and its purpose is unclear, but it could be a relieving arch, taking perhaps the load off a lower vaulted cellar (see below). A second arch, of four-centred form, lies in the opposite wall, but this is only 1.3 m. wide, and was therefore perhaps a door that led through to the second cellar. One jamb of another medieval opening, also of Caen, survives within the south-west wall, the opposing jamb now lost. A rebate and hinge pin is again present, but it is not splayed, suggesting it was for a door. This was presumably reached via stone steps from the street above, a common arrangement within medieval cellars and undercrofts. Such a door would allow goods and merchandise to be

brought directly into the cellar, rather than through the building. The second cellar is of similar size and alignment to the first, measuring approximately 10 m. long by 4.2 m. wide, but its floor is approximately 1 m. lower. It was used until recently for retail, and its walls have been lined out, but within the west corner some flint walling was exposed, suggesting the cellar to be of some antiquity. The third cellar is remarkable, as it lies nearly 4.5 m. below street level, beneath the first of the

two upper cellars. Such an arrangement is unusual, and certainly unique within Canterbury. There are two distinct phases to the lower cellar. The earliest part is a two bay ribbed vault of probable fourteenth-century date. Two brick barrel vaults, of probable sixteenthor seventeenth-century date lie to the north-west of this, extending beyond the footprint of the building under the street. Only one of the vaulted bays is intact, and this is partly underpinned in brick. It is typical of the period, comprising a quadripartite vault of plainly chamfered Caen stone ribs and chalk webbing. The vault is relatively low, only 2 m. high, its ribs rising from moulded corbels set approximately 0.9 m. above the cellar floor. Surprisingly the boss within the centre of the vault is undecorated. The second bay was replaced in the nineteenth century by a brick vault, but three corbels survive. An interesting, perhaps medieval feature, a circular Caen stone lined well, is located within its south corner. The vaulted bays are entered through the south-east wall of the cellar, beneath a low Caen stone arch. Steps perhaps led directly from here to the south-east of the two upper cellars, but they have long since disappeared, and access now lies beneath the stairs inserted in the 1930s (see below). Years of retail use have regrettably removed all trace of medieval fabric from the ground floor of the building and we must climb to the first floor to see any. A new timber staircase ‘designed on a Jacobean model, the fittings and furniture in keeping’ was introduced by Boots, against the north-east wall of the shop, to give access to the first floor, which they opened up to accommodate a small library. The walls are lined with modern shop fittings here, but the overhead joists and beams remain exposed. Much of this floor frame has been rebuilt, albeit in re-used oak, and it is only within the corner, and against Mercery Lane, that in situ medieval timbers survive, the most prominent of which is a dragonbeam. No evidence for partitioning (such as empty stave mortices) could be seen beneath the surviving medieval timbers. The second floor, unlike those below, has never been a shop floor, and is divided into a number of offices and stock rooms, most of which were formed in recent times. Once again little medieval fabric survives, although a few posts can be seen. The second floor would originally have been open to the roof (the upper chambers in medieval buildings were never ceiled) and the ceilings/floors that now lie above the extant rooms

Ground ﬂoor of No. 9 Mercery Lane, presently in use as a clothes shop.

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are therefore inserted. Unfortunately the medieval roof was replaced long before Boots arrived with roof structures that include a flat lead roof and staggered butt side-purlin roof, but it seems likely the original was of crown-post form. The poor preservation of the corner property makes interpretation of its original medieval form extremely difficult. It must have been built by Christ Church Priory, and seems to have resembled some of Canterbury’s other large timber-framed properties, accommodating perhaps shops on the ground floor, with rented accommodation above.

No. 10 Mercery Lane No. 10 Mercery Lane is Grade II listed but proved to be a rather uninteresting early twentieth-century structure, its three-storey façade unjettied and its upper ﬂoors built in a faux timber-framed style. The shop front was remodelled to match the corner property when Boots acquired the premises in the late 1950s. They knocked the ground ﬂoor through to incorporate it into their main shop. The documentary study suggested that the medieval corner property must have once been longer, extending further along Mercery Lane, with its north-easternmost bay therefore standing here.

No. 11 Mercery Lane No. 11 Mercery Lane is one of the most unassuming elements of the former Boots store, sitting almost unnoticed down the narrow street, behind a plain Georgian façade. However, appearances are deceptive, for this Grade II listed building is one of the

most interesting parts of the premises. A medieval timber-framed structure of possible fourteenthcentury date survives behind the later façade. Typically for an urban building, this is arranged at right angles to the street, occupying only a short length of the valuable street frontage, but extending back some distance into the plot behind. The structure is three storeys high, measuring approximately 5 m. wide by 9.2 m. deep, its timber-frame four bays long. It was perhaps a domestic residence, with a shop on the ground floor. The medieval façade would have been jettied towards the street, but if so these have long since been cut back. An early twentieth-century shop front, perhaps belonging to Reeves Bros., survives at ground level. The ground floor was knocked through to the rest of Boots, when they acquired the premises, and the ceiling raised. The two first floor rooms were also knocked through to form a stock room, but some eighteenth-century panelling survives. The second floor and attic have not though been altered, and retain pairs of rooms, separated by narrow attic stairs. These are the only rooms within the whole of the Boots premises that remain domestic in nature. There is a small eighteenth-century corner fireplace, for example, heating the front second floor room. A medieval roof, the only one to have survived in the Boots complex, can be seen from the attic rooms. At a glance this appears to be a common crown-post roof, but close inspection reveals a rather more interesting king-strut roof. Only three such roofs have been identified in Canterbury, one over the ‘Guest Hall’ of St Augustine’s Abbey, the second over the ‘Table Hall’ of Christ Church Priory, and the third over the chapel of Eastbridge Hospital.

The example here is of more modest size, but equally significant, being situated over a domestic rather than ecclesiastical building. Only one king-strut survives, above the attic stairs, and this is of square section. A second and third king-strut would have been located atop the tie-beams within the front and rear rooms. The roof would likely have terminated in gables to the front and rear, with further struts present in these. Four up-braces, of stocky square section, spring from the surviving strut, to a collar and the collar purlin. These are characteristically straight, not curved, suggesting a fourteenth-century date. Surprisingly two braces also descend from the head of the strut to the purlin, which is necessarily interrupted by the strut. Further inspection reveals other interesting and unusual features, namely soulace-braces and ashlar pieces. The ashlar pieces indicate the roof sat atop pairs of wall-plates. The inner plates, or cornice beams, are exposed within the front second floor room, where they are tenoned into the sides of the bridging-beam. Empty mortices for arch-braces are present on the soffit of this beam, indicating that a single room occupied the first two bays of the medieval building here. The partition that divided these two bays from those to the rear still survives against the later attic stairs. Part of a re-used, early eighteenth-century balustrade, comprising barley twist balusters and moulded handrail, can be seen at the head of the stairs.

No. 6a The Parade An early twentieth-century photograph reveals this narrow building to be the surviving third of a larger property that once extended to the southeast, occupying No. 6 The Parade. The façade of the surviving part was remodelled by Boots in the 1950s, in a style to match their corner property. The photograph shows the early to mid nineteenthcentury appearance of the original frontage, but all that now remains of this is its projecting parapet. Earlier fabric is likely to have lain behind this façade, but none survives today, except within the cellar, where some medieval masonry is present. Little of historic interest survives above the cellar. The ground ﬂoor for example is now another open shop ﬂoor, but a low slate roof, belonging with the earlier nineteenth-century façade, does survive at the front of the property.

Nos 5 and 6 The Parade

King-strut within roof of No. 11 Mercery Lane.

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Restored long and cross section through king-strut roof over No. 11 Mercery Lane.

This building is unlisted and was clearly purpose built by Timothy Whites in the 1930s, replacing whatever had previously stood on the two plots. It can be divided into two contemporary elements; a substantial two-storey range in a faux timber-framed style fronts the street, whilst a large single-storey, flat-roofed range lies to the rear. Neither is of historic interest. A large open shop floor, of approximately 295 square metres, runs through both elements at ground level. The first floor accommodates modern offices, a cloak room, toilets, and a staff canteen. The basement seems to be entirely modern.

BUILDING RECORDING

B Nos 8–9 The Parade and 25–26 St Margaret’s Street, Canterbury Rupert Austin and Sheila Sweetinburgh

Nos 8–9 The Parade and 25–26 St Margaret’s Street lie within one of Canterbury’s largest and most important Grade II listed buildings. This is timberframed, occupies a prime city centre location (TR 1494 5778), and was recently owned by Next, but was sold after the store relocated to new premises in the Whitefriars shopping centre. The new owners, City Property Holdings, recently refurbished the premises, dividing it into smaller retail units, but before this could happen, an archaeological survey of the building was requested by the local authority. It had long been known that an important medieval structure, comprising two ranges, survived within the premises, indeed the Trust brieﬂy appraised the building in the early eighties, but it was not fully recorded. The Trust was commissioned to undertake a full survey, by the new owners, and ﬁeldwork was duly undertaken in March 2005, once the building had been vacated. Tree ring dating of its timbers was also commissioned, and the results revealed the structure to have been built in 1377–78, making it one of Canterbury’s oldest secular buildings. The building was erected by Christ Church Priory and lies at possibly the most important crossroads in medieval Canterbury, within the heart of the city, where the processional way from the cathedral to the castle crossed the High Street. This central area was home to a variety of businesses at this time. Almost every available space was given over to commerce, craftsmen and traders, all servicing prosperous citizens and the many religious houses in and around Canterbury. Christ Church Priory, the primary landholder in this part of Canterbury, seems to have adopted a policy of building or buying properties, notably inns, in the fourteenth century. The largest of these, the Cheker, was constructed late in the fourteenth

century, and was sited on the opposite corner of the crossroads. Others were the ‘Sunne’ and the ‘Crowne’. The presence of these large, prestigious inns emphasises the importance of the area, both as a commercial centre and a place of residence (see also p. 45, above). The property stayed in priory hands until the Reformation when it passed to the Dean and Chapter. The absence of any name for the property in the records suggests that it was never an inn, but was probably a rental property with accommodation on the upper floors and shops on the ground floor. The Reformation brought considerable changes, not least the loss of the pilgrim trade, but despite this, many of the inns continued to function, the Dean and Chapter seeming to have few difficulties leasing their many properties.

Documentary history As part of the survey, Sheila Sweetinburgh investigated the documentary history of the building. The fragmentary nature of Christ Church priory’s property rentals during the period c. 1300 to 1540 made research into the early history of the site difﬁcult. The ﬁrst reference to the site, but not the extant building, comes from a priory rental of c.1165, in which the corner plot is described as belonging to the daughter of Godefrid of Malling (or Thanington). Within a couple of decades the site was in the hands of Susanna de Planaz, though possibly as a tenant of the Thanington family, because a rent of 4s. 9d. was still due to the lord of Thanington. By the early thirteenth century there were a number of shops on the site. Some of the tenants in 1234 were Alice, Mabel, Thomas the Glazier, Agnes, Richard, Henry and William de Welles.

It proved impossible to trace when these shops were pulled down and replaced by the present building, as no references to the new structure could be identified in the priory accounts, but by working backwards in time from the seventeenth century, when the rents had seemingly become fossilised, it is perhaps possible to identify, albeit tentatively, some of the building’s earliest tenants. Two successive items on an undated fifteenthcentury rental by ward record that John Lymynge had two shops, for which he paid 30s. and William Mason had a corner tenement, for which he paid the priory 60s. These are the amounts commonly paid for Nos 25–26 St Margaret’s Street and 8–9 The Parade respectively in the early modern period. The fifteenth-century rental may, therefore, refer to these two sections of the building, which perhaps implies the tenement had been sub-divided into two units before the Reformation, possibly even within a century of the building’s construction. Records for the post-Reformation period, when the building passed into Dean and Chapter hands, proved equally fragmentary, but it may again be possible to locate the two properties in a rental of 1567, where Christopher Bridge leased a tenement for 30s. a year (perhaps the St Margaret’s Street range) and John Frenche a property comprising two tenements at £3 per year (perhaps the Parade range). This may be the first time the Parade range was subdivided, and therefore the first time three dwellings were accommodated within the property as a whole. By the third quarter of the sixteenth century the rent accrued from the building was found to be £4 10s., a figure that is comparable to that obtained from the Cheker, a considerably larger building, something that reveals the importance and status of this property. From the mid seventeenth century the records are better. In 1649 the St Margaret’s Street range was said to comprise three shops, two butteries, two cellars, three chambers, four garrets and a backside, the unknown occupiers all sub-tenants of Elizabeth Lockley. She may have lived nearby because she also held the lease of the Rose Tavern on the corner of Rose Lane and The Parade. By 1662 it was in the hands of Mary Barrowe, widow of Richard, but she perhaps had little direct contact with the place, possibly remaining in London at her late husband’s house at the Whitefriars. She does not appear to have held the lease for long because the following year her new husband, a London woodmonger called Robert Hancocke, was holding it as the administrator of her affairs (she must have died between January 1662 and November 1663). At this time the St Margaret’s Street part of the property was rented out as two units, including two shops, a hall, a kitchen, a buttery, two cellars, ten chambers, three garrets and a little backside with a building thereon, a change from the three shops described in 1649, though when this alteration occurred is unclear. A decade later the lease changed hands again, the two units taken by Ralph Ludd, a Canterbury glazier, who may also have had his business premises

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become a clothes shop. J. Hepworth and his son, clothiers, traded from 9 The Parade, until c. 1970. By 1800 the St Margaret’s Street premises were held by Richard Herve Girand, a Canterbury grocer, the two tenements having been converted into a single dwelling. They were still owned by the Dean and Chapter in 1819 but appear to have been sold by 1829. Thereafter the history of the premises becomes difﬁcult to trace, but the census records suggest a fairly rapid turnover of occupants, that included ﬁshmongers and a boot and shoe maker. By the early 1950s the place had become a tea room, catering to the growing number of tourists that were now attracted to the city. The business was moderately successful, for it survived for over a decade. For a while the range became home to an estate agent, before the trend away from local family businesses to chain stores saw both The Parade and St Margaret’s Street ranges taken over by Next.

Architectural description

Location plan and ground plan, as existing, showing phasing.

and residence there. This part of the property was still in the hands of the Ludd family in 1736, when John Ludd, gentleman, acquired it, but his death in 1741 may have effectively ended the Ludd family’s interest in the property because the place was not mentioned in his will. The sitting tenant at this time was Christopher Creed, who had been there since at least 1730, his son Thomas Creed, ironmonger, becoming lessee and occupier in 1746. The lease and the one he acquired a decade later are interesting as they have small plans attached, showing the ground plan of the premises and the names of the adjacent property holders. Although much has changed since then, something of this ground plan can still be identiﬁed within the building today. It seems that for most of the eighteenth century the St Margaret Street premises were leased and probably occupied by ironmongers, in sharp contrast to the Parade premises where drapery was the dominant trade (see below). In 1660 Israel Jacob, an apothecary from Canterbury, leased both Parade premises from the Dean and Chapter, suggesting therefore that this

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section of the building had been restored, for the time being, back to one premises, Jacob perhaps using the whole range as a residence and shop. By 1742 John Hobbs, a linen draper, held the lease. This may have been the first time this part of the building had been used to sell drapery. Drapers remained within the Parade range throughout the nineteenth century. By 1871 Frederick West was running a prosperous family business here, known as ‘F. & H.P. West drapers and milliner’, and employed nine assistants, the business surviving until the First World War. His wife employed three domestic servants to help care for the house and her two young children. It is difficult to know whether this apparent continuity of use of at least part of The Parade premises was an accident of fortune or a product of successive linen drapers seeing the potential of a shop that was already arranged for their purposes. On several occasions the new lessee seems to have occupied the place first, which may indicate they took on the business and stock of their predecessors. For a short time the premises were home to E.L. Gardiner & Son, auctioneers, but before long they had once again

The medieval property comprises two substantial ranges, which meet at the corner of The Parade and St Margaret’s Street to form an L-shaped plan. Each range is three storeys in height, the upper ﬂoors jettied towards both St Margaret’s Street and The Parade. The building is truly urban in form, bearing no resemblance to the many domestic medieval properties, large or small, that can be seen in less crowded locations. Such urban structures were only built within the centres of our largest towns, and the building is amongst the biggest of the timber-framed structures of the period. The St Margaret’s Street range measures approximately 14 m. in length, and is four bays long, The Parade range, which includes the corner of the property, measures approximately 12.7 m. in length, and is also four bays long. The total ﬂoor area, excluding the basement, is around 489 square metres (3210 square feet), a considerable size for a medieval timber-framed property. Well-preserved crown-post roofs survive over both ranges. Except for the north-west corner, where the two ranges meet, these are of conventional construction, the crown-posts plain and square. The roofs of the two ranges once terminated in gables, at the corner, but only one of these, that which faces the Parade, now survives. This incorporates a king-strut in its construction, a feature that has so far only been seen within one other Canterbury building, No. 11 Mercery Lane (see p. 49). Kingstruts differ from crown-posts, in that they rise to the ridge, rather than stopping at the collar, the gable rafters tenoned into the sides of the post at

Crown-post roof over St Margaret’s Street range.

BUILDING RECORDING

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BUILDING RECORDING

Detail of intersection of St Margaret’s and Parade roofs.

the ridge. The St Margaret’s Street gable has been lost, but evidence shows it was similar (A–A). It is unusual to find gables on a medieval timber-framed building, most have hipped ends, and the presence of two here, placed at right angles to each other on the corner, is therefore unusual. An unusual ‘pyramid’ like structure can be seen behind the two gables, where the roofs of each range intersect (B–B). In medieval, and indeed later timber-framed buildings, intersecting roofs are usually formed by allowing one roof to ride over the other. A more complex solution has been adopted here. Four substantial valley-rafters rise, at the point where the two ranges meet, to form a square based ‘pyramid’. The common rafters of the roof are supported by these timbers at this point. Such a construction has so far not been observed on another Canterbury building. Large timber sprockets, with curved soffits, were once fitted to the eaves of the roof, carrying the roof line beyond the walls, thereby throwing rain water clear of the building (see D–D). Parapets were added to the two ranges during the eighteenth century, and the arrangement changed, but remarkably lots of the medieval sprockets have survived, in relocated positions higher up the roof. Lath and daub partitions appear to have been present at every bay division within the roof. The second floor was originally open to the roof (attic floors have since been inserted), and it would therefore have been similarly divided, each bay therefore accommodating a single room. Modern render now covers the exterior of the property, obscuring the medieval frame, but leaving the jettying to betray the building’s medieval origins from the street. No medieval windows survive, all have been blocked or replaced, but fortunately framing is exposed internally, particularly on the second floor, within the corner of the property, and something of the original appearance of the building, particularly its fenestration, can be seen by inspecting the surviving timbers. The large corner bay accommodated pairs of windows in each elevation, two lying adjacent to each other at the corner of the property. The regular bays, to the south and east, each accommodated a single, wide, centrally placed window. The medieval windows lay directly beneath the eaves of the building, above a mid-rail, which appears to have run continuously along both frontages (A–A). Empty housings for this mid-rail, which was perhaps elaborately moulded, can still be seen.

Timber frame of second ﬂoor, St Margaret’s Street range frontage, viewed from interior.

Rebates in the sides of several of the surviving window jambs show that carved window heads were once present, but these have all been removed, and their original form is therefore unknown. Carved window heads can, though, be seen on other medieval buildings within the city, those at the Cheker comprising typical fourteenth-century tracery, those at the Bull of low four-centred form with sunken spandrels. Interestingly one of the medieval windows, within the corner bay along the St Margaret’s street elevation, differs from those described above; its jambs are unmoulded, and it lacks a rebate for a window head. A window

frame was perhaps planted onto the face of the elevation here. This may have been quite elaborate, emphasising perhaps the higher status of the large corner chamber. The respective window within the Parade elevation may have been similar, but is presently obscured. Medieval fabric certainly survives within the first floor elevations, but little is visible. It seems likely that the arrangement was similar to the second floor. A dragon-post, with a large curved blade and a moulded capital and base, can be seen at the corner; some common brackets are visible further along the elevations, beneath the jetties. The ground

Seventeenth-century panelled door preserved within roof of the Parade range.

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BUILDING RECORDING

Early Georgian room showing panelling and ﬁreplace with carved overmantle.

floor elevations of the property have all been rebuilt, and any medieval fabric removed, the St Margaret’s Street and Parade elevations now spanned by a single modern shop front. The rear elevations of both ranges have been more thoroughly altered than the street frontages, largely as a result of the construction of later extensions to the rear. Little primary fabric is now visible, but something of the original arrangement can be gleaned from the few exposed timbers. This clearly differs from the street frontages, the elevations unjettied and lacking the large windows. This is hardly a surprise, however, given that the elevations probably overlooked a private yard. The interiors of both the St Margaret’s and Parade ranges of the property have now been altered to the point where their layout no longer bears any resemblance to the original medieval scheme. The ground and first floors, for example, have been almost completely opened up to form large open shop floors. Few medieval partitions therefore survive within the building, and evidence for those removed is largely obscured. Our understanding of the internal arrangement of the medieval building is therefore limited. Partitions within timber-framed structures were usually (but not always) located at the bay divisions. In every instance, on the first and second floors, where medieval fabric is sufficiently exposed, evidence for a partition is present at a bay division (see F–F); nowhere was an open-frame encountered. It seems, therefore, that the ranges were divided, on these floors, into a series of rooms, each occupying a single bay. Doors to these rooms must have been present, but no evidence for these is visible. Passages may also have been present, to give independent access between the rooms, but again no evidence is visible. Although an openframe has yet to be seen within the property, this does not preclude the existence of one and thereby larger rooms of two or even three bays. Medieval fabric is presently exposed at only one bay division on the ground floor. Although the building was indeed partitioned here, further evidence is required before it can be suggested that the ground floor was similarly divided into single bay rooms. The ground floor almost certainly accommodated shops, and may have been arranged differently from the floors above. It is presently unclear how the rooms were heated, if indeed they were. Certainly none of the roof timbers

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are soot blackened, something that might suggest the use of open-hearths, and there is no evidence for smoke bays or timber-framed flues. Lack of evidence for heating is not, though, unique to this building, and is something that has been observed in Canterbury’s other, large timber-framed structures, such as the Cheker. Chimneys might have been located against the rear elevations of the building, but there is as yet no evidence to support such a suggestion. Stairs must have provided access between the floors, but no evidence for medieval stairwells was seen, although much of the floor frame remains hidden. A rear stair tower should be considered as an alternative to steps within the ranges themselves. The stair tower that lies at the internal corner of the two ranges today is of seventeenth-century build (see below), but might replace an earlier example. Basements now lie beneath the whole building, but only those beneath the St Margaret’s Street range are medieval. Here walls comprising alternate bands of coursed, knapped flint and chalk rubble, laid in a coarse lime mortar, can be seen. An incalculable number of alterations to the property have occurred since it was built, and it is now difficult to make sense of them all, but fortunately most are not of great interest. The building has been rearranged and refurbished internally many times to suit the needs of successive occupants, but many of the alterations that have occurred between the medieval period and the building’s more recent department store use have been lost, as the interior of the building was opened up to accommodate large shop floors. The first significant later phase of work seems to be a timber-framed stair tower that rises up through all three floors at the internal corner of the two ranges. Its elevations are now largely internalised by later work, and the feature is not immediately obvious externally. Little fabric is exposed, indeed much has been lost, but the timbers that can be seen are less substantial than those within the medieval parts of the building and suggest a later, perhaps seventeenth-century date. Modern stairs now rise up through the tower, removing or obscuring any evidence for the original arrangement. A blocked opening, crudely cut through the east wall of the St Margaret’s Street basement suggests steps, of brick or stone, may have descended from the tower into the basement. Garret rooms had perhaps been inserted into some of the roof spaces by this time, providing extra storage space and additional

accommodation. An attractive, early seventeenth century panelled door that once led between two of the garret rooms is preserved within the roof of the Parade range. An important change that overlies the many alterations that occurred is the subdivision of what was once a single building into separate properties. The documentary study showed that the number of dwellings changed with time, sometimes increasing, at other times decreasing. By 1717 the building accommodated three separate properties. The placement of these three properties is still apparent today, when one views the exterior, which is divided into three distinct architectural schemes, but most of the rooms and internal features associated with them have been swept away. A number of period features associated with the property that came to occupy the three southernmost bays of the St Margaret’s Street range do survive. Although this dwelling occupied only around a third of the medieval building, it still amounted to a substantial house. The quality of the surviving features shows it to have been a fairly prestigious city residence. The property was thoroughly refurbished in the early eighteenth century in a fashionable early Georgian style. It would be easy to attribute all the new features to a single campaign of work, but they were likely introduced over a more extended period of time. The dwelling was entered, from the street, through a central door (relative to the three bays), that was presumably fitted with a timber door case of suitable Georgian style, but such a feature has long since been lost. The rest of the façade was also remodelled at this time, and included a parapet with elaborately moulded and modillioned cornice, and three handsome first floor oriel windows, supported by plaster coving. An unusual feature, a small observation room or gazebo, was also built atop the roof of the property at this time (E–E); windows are located in all four walls of the gazebo, offering panoramic views of the city. Many of the surviving internal Georgian features lie within the south-east end of the house (see C–C), the best within an extension that was built against the rear of the main range. The extension is brick built and of two storeys, and at approximately 9 by 4 m. the largest addition to the building. A panelled room, certainly the best period room in the whole building, occupies the first floor, its walls lined with early fielded Georgian panelling. The room is tall, the panelling

BUILDING RECORDING

rising to a moulded and modillioned plaster cornice. The extension was apparently built to accommodate this tall room, the garret floor lying higher than that within the adjacent medieval range. A handsome fireplace, with shouldered surround and carved overmantle, lies within the south wall. Its overmantel is lavishly decorated, a pair of scrolls and swags placed symmetrically beside a low pedestal embellished with a carved head. A butt side-purlin roof, mostly built of re-used oak, covers the extension, and includes two dormer windows within its east slope, suggesting that a garret room was present from the outset. A handsome softwood, open-well staircase rises up within the north end of the extension, and is one of the property’s best features (E–E). The turned balusters and stocky moulded handrail are typical of the early eighteenth century. A redundant chimney lies at the north end of the extension, rising up between the aforementioned staircase and the south wall of the seventeenthcentury stair tower. Its hearths have now been lost, and any evidence for them concealed. The chimney stack has been dismantled above the roof line, and only a few courses of brick survive. These are thin and irregularly formed, suggesting a seventeenthcentury date. The chimney seems strangely sandwiched between the seventeenth-century stairs to the north and the early eighteenth-century stairs to the south. If both staircases were present when the chimney was built, it would have had no rooms to heat. There must have been changes to the arrangement within this part of the building. The early eighteenth-century stairs may have been inserted into the extension later, the first- and second-floor rooms once running all the way to the chimney and heated by hearths in its south flank. Detail of early eighteenth-century staircase.

CThe Church of St Gregory the Great, Canterbury Peter Seary

Late in 2005 the church and churchyard of St Gregory the Great situated at the corner of Old Ruttington Lane and North Holmes Road (TR 1550 5815) were examined as part of a desk-based assessment commissioned on behalf of Canterbury Christ Church University. The church was established during the mid nineteenth century to serve the liberty of St Gregory’s, a small extra-parochial area amid the parish of St Mary Northgate. The population of this liberty (the site of St Gregory’s Priory) had risen nearly twenty-fold over the previous thirty years, and was felt to be in dire need of spiritual supervision. At the same time, Canterbury, and the Northgate

parish in particular, had all but run out of consecrated ground for burials, and the new churchyard was intended to relieve this pressure. Accordingly, a plot of ground, adjoining the liberty of St Gregory’s, was purchased out of St Mary’s parish rates (aided by subscriptions from the other parishes) and conveyed, in 1849, to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Two years later it was consigned to the registry of the diocese ‘as a Site for a new Church and Burial Ground in the Parish of St Mary Northgate’. A great many new Anglican churches were being built around this time to meet the needs of urban populations which had either outgrown their existing provision or which, as in this case, had never been provided for in the ﬁrst place. The church was designed by George Gilbert Scott, whose plan is held by Lambeth Palace Library and can be seen on their ‘Church Plans online’ website. Over the previous decade, Scott had overseen a great many of the Commissioners’ new churches (besides his ubiquitous restorations). His designs, which must often, of necessity, have been worked up by his employees, sometimes show signs of ‘massproduction’; the plan of St Gregory’s, for example, is a near mirror-image of that of Scott’s more-or-

less-contemporary Church of St Paul, at Llanelly. On the other hand, by cladding St Gregory’s with ﬂint and stone, Scott may well have been applying his stated principle of accommodation to the local architectural tradition. St Gregory’s was, like so many of Scott’s churches, a slightly fussy simulation of a medieval parish church. An impression of age was sought by ‘distressing’ the stone quoins and window surrounds, the corners of the blocks being chopped off deliberately (this, however, was done excessively neatly and does not convince). Scott also supplied the church with its own spurious ‘architectural history’; details taken from successive architectural styles were used in different parts of the church, to make it seem the result of piecemeal enlargement and alteration over the centuries rather than a single phase of work. Thus the windows of the north aisle resemble Early English lancets whilst the other windows approximate different stages of the Decorated period. The odd arrangement at the west end, where the doorway pokes up through the base of the great window, may also have been intended to suggest historical process, as may the complicated distribution of the pews, within – as if they had been inserted around pre-existing piers and ﬁxtures.

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The church had a plain, scissor-braced roof. The ﬂoor was of alternating red and black tiles, laid diagonally, with white stone steps at the chancel and sanctuary. The interior stonework here-and-there attests Scott’s taste for complicated, foliate details. The original windows were of clear glass in lead cames, but these would gradually be replaced with donated stained glass. By 1854 three grisaille windows had been inserted in the chancel and a number of commemorative windows would be inserted during the early twentieth century. The churchyard, which was laid out in an informal style with a great many trees, became Canterbury’s principal place of burial,

and would remain so until the provision of the main city cemetery. This explains why it contains so many ﬁne memorials, despite the poverty of its parish. The completed and furnished church was consecrated by Archbishop John Bird on 23 August 1852. In 1902 St Gregory’s became the parish church of the St Mary Northgate parish. In a sense this brought things full-circle, since St Gregory’s Priory had had jurisdiction over the parish during the medieval period. Ten years later, the vestry sought a faculty to dismantle and pull down the old church of St Mary Northgate. This faculty (which would, incidentally, have resulted in the loss of the most impressive stretch of Canterbury’s

Roman town wall) was granted, but was later reversed so that the old church could be used as a parish hall. Many of the church ﬁttings, however, were transferred to St Gregory’s, including a noteworthy brass with an English inscription, to Ralph Brown. In 1976 St Gregory’s Church, itself, became redundant, when worship was transferred to the Garrison Church of St Alban. The name of the parish was altered to that of ‘All Saints’. Many of St Gregory’s furnishings were removed to the new church, including items from St Mary Northgate. Vandalism of the redundant church, and its churchyard, began almost immediately.

plates. Up-braces are present above these plates, springing from the principal posts to the undersides of the eaves-plates. The south elevation has been knocked through into the later lean-to, but two braces remain here, beneath the eaves. Surprisingly these are down-braces, the difference, and an absence of weathering on their outer faces, suggesting an outshot or lean-to was present against this end of the building from the outset. The extant structure is, though, entirely modern; the lean-to must therefore have been rebuilt. A lean-to is also present against the north end of the building, but this is little more than a nineteenth-century shed, the medieval elevation behind it clearly heavily weathered, confirming that there was no lean-to here at first. Inspection of the floors within the building reveals them to be later insertions (see below). The building was originally open from the ground floor into the roof, in both bays. The elevations, typically for a structure that contains open bays, are only a storey and a half high, the eaves-plate lying approximately 2.7 m. above the ground plate. A simple collar-rafter roof, hipped to the north and south, covers the building, and is largely intact. It is soot blackened throughout its length, suggesting therefore that open hearths were present within both bays of the building, a most unusual arrangement. The remains of several original windows, some still retaining their timber mullions, were discovered behind later plaster, within the front and rear walls

of each bay, and also within the north wall. They lay above the mid-rails, rising to the eaves, and were unglazed, their plain wooden mullions set on the diagonal, in a typical medieval manner. Holes for iron pins, upon which wooden shutters once swung, can be seen next to some of the openings. There may not have been a window in the south wall as a lean-to was perhaps present against this elevation from the outset, but any evidence to prove or disprove this has been lost. Evidence for two original doors can be seen on the west elevation of the building, side by side within the centre of the elevation, one leading into the north bay, the other into the south bay (A–A). This is again an unexpected arrangement, and another indication that this is an unusual building. Up-braces are notably absent from the post that lies between the two doors, conﬁrming they are original features.

D Sunnyside, Wingham Well Rupert Austin

Sunnyside lies within Wingham Well, a small hamlet located roughly 1 km. to the south-west of Wingham (TR 236 567). This modest half-timbered cottage lies a few metres back from Watercress Lane, on gently rising ground, and was occupied until recently as a single dwelling. It had fallen into a poor state of repair and was recently sold to a new owner, who is presently restoring and refurbishing the property. The Trust was commissioned to inspect the building and prepare a short archaeological report, in advance of its refurbishment. Sunnyside contains the remains of a small but unusual two bay timber-framed building, which dates perhaps to the late ﬁfteenth or early sixteenth century. The two bays together measure approximately 8.2 m. in length by 5.1 m. in width, and are aligned north–south. Single-storey lean-tos have been built against the ends of these bays. Both bays are of equal size, each occupying exactly half the building’s footprint. The structure is conventionally framed, its oak timbers relatively lightweight, and of modest section, in comparison to many other timber-framed buildings. It has seen much alteration and repair, but plenty of original timbers survive, sufﬁcient to enable all but the south elevation to be understood and recreated on paper. The north, east and west elevations incorporate large panels of wattle and daub between the principal timbers. Horizontal wall-plates lie within the elevations, approximately 1.2 m. above the ground-

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BUILDING RECORDING

First ﬂoor interior, looking south-west, showing collar rafter roof and inserted chimney.

The timber-ground plate runs unbroken beneath the north door, which has been blocked, but has been cut away beneath the south door, which remains in use. A third door was inserted through the east elevation of the south bay in later years. The original doors lie within the rear elevation of the building, with respect to the road, something that is perhaps related to the lie of the land, which rises steeply to the west. The footings beneath the east elevation of the building are high, and if doors had been sited here, several steps would have been required. Beneath the west elevation they are of more normal height. Once inside we see that the two bays were partitioned from each other from the outset. Only the cambered tie-beam and one brace of the dividing cross-frame (C–C) now survive. Empty mortices reveal that wattle and daub was present above and below the tie-beam. Unfortunately any evidence for the arrangement at ground level has been lost, but partitioning must have been present here too. The presence of two side-by-side doors within the west elevation would seem to render any internal intercommunication between the bays unnecessary, and it seems unlikely any internal doors were present.

Sunnyside has seen numerous alterations and repairs over the years. Floors were inserted into both open bays, but these differ in their construction, indicating that they were introduced at different times. It seems the northern bay was floored first. The spine-beam and joists that can be seen here are of heavy section, and are clearly medieval fabric salvaged from another building. The joists within the south bay are skinny and lightweight, and were likely inserted later, the south bay remaining open for longer than the north bay. The brick chimney which rises up through the south bay was presumably introduced once this bay had been floored, and the open hearth lost. It is of seventeenth-century appearance with south facing hearths at both ground and first floor level. The property probably became a single dwelling when the first bay was floored; it must certainly have been one once the second bay was floored, and the chimney built. The north bay seems to have remained unheated until the nineteenth century, when a small and rather uninteresting chimney was built against the north wall. Sunnyside is a most unusual timber-framed building and an important discovery. The symmetrical

but otherwise identical nature of its two bays, the presence of two side-by-side doors, the likely independent nature of the two bays, and the use of two open-hearths suggests it contained two independent domestic dwellings, a pair of late medieval ‘semi-detached’ cottages in fact. Each dwelling comprised a small open-hall, with no upper chambers or service rooms, although some form of informal bunk is possible. A lean-to probably lay against the south wall of the south bay from the outset, so the south dwelling was slightly larger than the north. The lean-to may, however, have served both cottages, functioning perhaps as a communal woodshed or washroom, but all this is pure speculation. Was Sunnyside built and rented by a landowner to two local labourers, or is it an early and simple form of almshouse, a pair of single room dwellings erected by the church or a local benefactor to provide accommodation for two elderly or inﬁrm persons? Non domestic use, such as a detached kitchen, a service building, or some form of workshop associated with a nearby property should not be ruled out, and would be equally interesting, but is perhaps more unlikely.

E Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, Margate Peter Seary

The former Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital occupied a cliff-top site, on the Canterbury Road, overlooking Westbrook Bay near Margate (TR 343 705). It inhabited a large and complicated group of buildings, erected over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It closed in the 1990s and residential redevelopment began in 2005; the Trust was commissioned to undertake the necessary archaeological works prior to this redevelopment. The archaeological investigation of the buildings was proceeded by close inspection of the extant fabric and ﬁttings, combined with a fairly detailed inspection of hospital minute books, historic photographs, maps, and engravings. An intriguing story emerged, and one which differed, in many respects, from existing

historical accounts. We are grateful to the developers, Paigle Properties, for the opportunity to investigate this extraordinary institution. The Sea-Bathing Hospital was founded in 1791, by Dr John Coakley Lettsom, as a national institution to treat the poor ‘whose diseases required sea-bathing’, chiefly scrofula and other forms of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. It seems to have been the world’s first hospital dedicated to the practice of therapeutic sea-bathing, and may have been the first hospital to specialize in the tuberculoses, although the cause and interrelatedness of these conditions were not yet clear. Other claims which have been made for the institution, that it was the world’s first orthopaedic hospital, or that it provided heliotherapy and/or open-

air treatment a hundred years in advance of other hospitals, are not supported by the evidence. The Sea-Bathing Hospital drew inspiration, and much of its expertise and technology, from Margate’s eighteenth-century bathing houses, wherein specialized medical practitioners attended wealthy invalids and prescribed complicated medical regimes centred around sea-bathing. These institutions made use of Margate’s famous bathing machines (devised by Benjamin Beale in the 1750s) along with heated, indoor salt-water baths and showers. In most other respects, the proposed Sea-Bathing Hospital was based on the less luxurious model of other, earlier, voluntary hospitals – including those offering mineralwater treatments.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

Simpliﬁed block plan of the main buildings.

After some initial difficulties the first hospital building, a ‘plain structure at minimal expense’ (Lettsom 1801), was raised, on a former brickfield, between 1793 and 1801. Almost nothing of this building survives besides a few scraps of basement wall, but it is well-attested by early engravings. It was designed by the Rev. John Pridden, a member of the hospital’s Board of Directors, and consisted of a two-storey administrative block flanked by singlestorey wings, accommodating thirty patients. The first patients were admitted in 1796, by which time the central block and one of the wings had been finished. The main treatment offered by the hospital at this time was that of sea-bathing, carried on, for the most part, using the hospital’s own bathing machine; a deep cutting was dug in the chalk cliff for the purpose. There were also one or more heated salt-water baths in the hospital basement. At first, the water for these indoor baths had to be carted up from the beach (in 1807 a horse-pump would be installed). The sea-bathing treatment was supplemented by fresh air, rest, and improved diet, plus a few early pharmaceutical preparations. The ward walls were of plain brick, painted with white limewash, and the floors were of bare timber. The beds were predominantly straw-filled palliasses, supplied with blankets, and straw bolsters, but, from an early date, a few feather beds and bolsters were provided for the worst cases. Treatment was, at first, limited to the summer months.

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From the outset, the Sea-Bathing Hospital was heavily oversubscribed, and patients, well in excess of the intended number, were crowded in. In 1803, a group of old cottages was purchased, adjoining the hospital site, and seem to have been temporarily adopted as wards. These cottages were quite

dilapidated; two of them required timber floors before they could be used. More permanent enlargements of the hospital began in 1808, when a large, single-storey cross-wing, designed by John Peacock, was added across the south end of the hospital building. It was intended that a similar wing be provided at the north end, but by the time the funds became available a yet more substantial enlargement was required. From the early 1820s the hospital was entirely rebuilt, piecemeal, by the architect John Griffith. He drew up plans to replace Peacock’s addition with two new cross-wings, each of two storeys. The first of these was raised, in 1822–3, across the north end of the hospital building. Griffith’s original intention seems to have been to retain Pridden’s original hospital building, between the new cross-wings. This intention, however, seems to have been overridden by the event of a ‘hurricane’, as the cross-wing neared completion, which damaged the original north wing. In 1824 Griffiths rebuilt this old wing, up to the central block, raising it to two storeys. In 1832, having set this precedent, Griffith rebuilt the remainder of the hospital building including the central block and Peacock’s cross-wing. Griffith, who was becoming known as a Doric Revivalist, supplied a handsome Greek Doric portico to the central block (perhaps an attempt to add dignity to the Sea-Bathing Hospital, at a time when Margate town was acquiring a reputation for rowdiness). He supplied the new south cross-wing with austere, Doric detail, and may have contemplated one day reconstructing his north cross-wing in the same manner. Such a course was, however, never followed; during the second quarter of the nineteenth century a combined disciplinary and financial crisis developed, at the hospital, which seems, for a time, to have precluded further enlargement. Alongside the increasing capacity of the hospital, the range of ‘water’ treatments on offer was also gradually extended, with the introduction of a shower bath, in 1815; a vapour bath, in the 1820s; and a douche bath by 1833. To these there seems, in 1859, to have been added the so-called ‘Galvanic’ bath – wherein an electric current

Plan and west elevation of John Pridden’s proposed original hospital building. By permission of Margate Public Library.

BUILDING RECORDING

East elevation of the Sea Bathing Hospital, c. 1826. By permission of Margate Public Library.

West elevation of the Sea Bathing Hospital, 1875. By permission of Margate Public Library.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

was applied to the patient. Other bizarre variations were attempted, inﬂuenced by the development of ‘hydrotherapy’, on the continent. In all of these new treatments, salt water was used in place of fresh. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century there was growing pressure for improvements to the hospital’s ageing wards and sanitary facilities, and for improvements in nursing. Hospital architecture was being reconsidered in line with the then dominant ‘miasmic’ theory of disease. Some of the new theories were applied, in embryonic form, in two cruciform children’s wards of 1858, by William Caveler, but the wards in the older parts of the building lagged long behind. Various minor alterations were made to improve the ventilation of the wards, but lack of space, and funds, for new buildings, prevented other improvements. Erasmus Wilson’s gift, in 1882, of a chapel; a warm, salt-water swimming bath; and a concatenated range of pavilion wards, brought the hospital more nearly into line with current medical and architectural thinking by increasing the size of the hospital without a like increase in the number of beds. These new buildings were provided with a suite of glazed verandas, which would have important, if unintended, consequences for the development of the hospital. The new pavilion wards, by James Knowles, were raised in an exceedingly eclectic, ‘modern Gothic’ style, in red and black brick, with a rooftop promenade surrounded by terracotta balustrades. The work on the new wing was accompanied by extensive improvements and alterations to other hospital buildings, including the removal of Grifﬁth’s Greek Doric portico to its present position on the south front of the hospital. The new wards provided excellent examples of complex, late nineteenth-century, therapeutic architecture, equipped in line with the latest medical thought.

Their up-to-date features: high ceilings, glazed-brick interiors, condensation traps, and a combined, gasdriven heating and ventilation system, however, made them terribly expensive to run; the cost of heating and stafﬁng the new buildings, combined with a perceived shortfall in contributions, effectively crippled the hospital for the remainder of the century.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century the value of sea-water as a treatment for extra-pulmonary tuberculosis came into question. The hospital staff became divided between steadfast adherents of bathing, and those who believed that fresh air and good food had always been the secret. At the same time, as incidence of scrofula declined, the hospital altered its admission criteria to treat a wider range of diseases – another divisive issue. There was concern that the hospital would lose its distinctive identity and be mistaken for a mere sanatorium. All in all, this period saw the institution undergo a complicated crisis of identity. A succession of new treatments (largely physical and surgical) was gradually introduced, alongside sea-bathing. The introduction of antisepsis made surgery less dangerous and led to a (somewhat misguided) increase in operations to remove scrofulous ‘glands’. A large, modern operating theatre was built, and ﬁtted out, on the latest principles, in 1897.

At the end of the nineteenth century, following another substantial benefaction, the hospital was briefly closed to allow a thorough reorganisation, transforming every aspect of the hospital and its regime. Extensive alterations were made to the interior of the old hospital building and to the various outbuildings. The large salt-water swimming bath in the Erasmus Wilson wing was decommissioned, to provide another large ward, and other alterations were made, designed to relieve the expense of the new wing. The early twentieth century, and the introduction of continental medical theories, brought further therapeutic innovations. The hospital greatly augmented its verandas to provide ‘open-air treatment’ on the sanatorium model; it later modified them and enlarged them further, following the introduction of heliotherapy, adding balconies for regimented sunbathing. In 1913 a new ward pavilion was built (the George V wing) fully adapted for heliotherapy. Around this time, orthopaedic technology came to prominence at the hospital, with the development of innovative techniques and appliances, supported by workshops distributed around the hospital site. For many years the hospital relied heavily on the distressing, and now controversial, practice of long-term immobilization. The 1940s at last saw effective anti-tuberculous drugs introduced, which hastened the retreat of tuberculosis, and reduced the need for hospital treatment. The Sea-Bathing Hospital diversified its intake again, based on its existing strengths, but was deliberately wound down, under the NHS. The author would like to thank the staff of the Local Studies Room at Margate Public Library for their invaluable assistance and particularly for allowing some of the illustrations included here to be used in this report.

F No. 3 Millwall Place, Sandwich Rupert Austin and Sheila Sweetinburgh

No. 3 Millwall Place lies within the historic town of Sandwich (TR 331 579), and is Grade II listed and timber-framed, dating perhaps to the turn of the sixteenth century. It seems to have started life as a workshop or warehouse rather than a domestic residence. At the time of the Trust’s involvement in 2005, permission to convert the building, then in use as a garage, to residential use, was being sought. A detailed archaeological report on the structure was requested by Dover District Council, in order that any scheme could be prepared from an informed position with respect to its historic fabric. The Trust was commissioned by the owner of the property to undertake this analysis, which included a drawn and photographic survey, and also a three dimensional reconstruction of the property. Sandwich’s place as one of Kent’s most important medieval ports is well known. The town thrived throughout much of the medieval period, the numerous ancient and tightly packed buildings that lie within its walls ample testimony to its prosperity. In the early medieval period Sandwich was under the

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lordship of Canterbury Cathedral Priory, and had been given certain privileges in return for the provision of Ship Service to the king, a situation that was formalised in 1260 with the granting of the general charter to the Cinque Ports. Overseas trade was important to medieval Sandwich. In addition to wool and wine, other commodities such as woad, hides, timber, building stone and raisins were all shipped into and out of Sandwich. It seems likely many imports were destined for the capital, and for urban centres such as Canterbury, as London

merchants were among those residing there during the medieval period. Occupational surnames also indicate the presence of artisans, including those involved in the cloth industry, and documentary sources occasionally mention the workshops, stalls and other buildings associated with them. The town was badly hit by plague in the mid fourteenth century, but it was not until the late fifteenth century, around the time that No. 3 Millwall Place was built, that its economic fortunes began to decline. The exact reasons for this are uncertain, but the town suffered a devastating French attack and several other raids in the third quarter of the fifteenth century. The leading citizens of the time thought, that the silting of the harbour was the biggest problem. By the early decades of the sixteenth century the town was in decline, and it is noticeable that even by the late fifteenth century there were empty plots where houses had once stood. No. 3 Millwall Place is aligned roughly north–south, its frontage lying directly against and parallel with the street. A modern 1970s development abuts it to the south, an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century property

BUILDING RECORDING

Birdseye perspective of front (west) elevation (partially restored).

abuts it to the north. Its façade now comprises a later brick ground floor, punctuated by a wide carriage entrance, and a weather-boarded timber-framed first floor, and its medieval origins are concealed from the street. The interior of the building has also been heavily altered. Internal floors and partitions have been removed to create a large open space, the building now resembling a barn internally, but as we shall see, this is not its true nature. Although the building has seen lots of destructive alteration, sufficient medieval fabric survives to enable much of its original form to be understood. The structure is four bays in length, and measures approximately 11.62 m. long by 5.53 m. deep. A simple collar-rafter roof covers the building; no purlins, crown-posts or wind-braces were ever present. The roof has survived largely intact, though the south gable has been rebuilt as a hip. The rear (east) elevation of the original structure is now internalised by a later outshot (A–A), and has been much altered, but is still one of the most informative parts of the building. The jowled posts here have been left free standing, rather like arcade-posts, following the removal of much intervening fabric, but curved braces still rise from them to the eavesplate (a few have now been removed). A series of carpenter’s numerals number the braces from the south, confirming that braces 1 & 2 lie within the southernmost, and therefore first, bay. Horizontal wall-plates once lay between the posts, midway up the elevation, and secondary posts above these, but they have all been removed. The rear faces of the surviving timbers are heavily weathered,

conﬁrming that this was indeed once an external wall. A shutter groove runs along the sofﬁt of the eaves-plate within the second bay, a small mortice in the side of a post here for a rail that supported the lower edge of the shutter. The presence of a shutter implies a small window was once present, but surprisingly a brace passes uninterrupted across the opening, revealing it to be a rather primitive feature, that let light and air into the building, but did not enhance the building’s appearance. Several medieval timbers survive within the north wall of the structure (B–B), including an east–west

First ﬂoor interior, looking north.

aligned beam at first floor height, now underpinned with later brick and flint. Two important features, a jetty-bracket and an empty jetty-plate dovetail, lie beneath the west end of this beam. These are a fortunate survival, for they show the north bay was once jettied towards the street, a feature that can only have been present if the bay was floored from the outset; the extant floor comprises modern fabric. Further inspection reveals an empty mortice for the central spine-beam of the floor. Evidence could be seen in the front (west) wall for two small windows that illuminated the first floor room (see below), but none was observed in the north or east walls, indicating therefore that the room was poorly lit. The room remains open to the roof; no ceiling ever appears to have been inserted. The front (west) elevation (D–D) seems then to have been jettied towards the street, but brick now underpins the elevation (see below) and only the first floor remains timber-framed. Unfortunately this too has been almost entirely rebuilt, and only a few medieval timbers survive. Empty mortices on the soffits of the eaves-plates reveal, however, that secondary posts were present between the jowled principals, in the second and fourth bays. Measurements revealed that these were not equally spaced. In three places they are set wider apart, to accommodate small window openings, two in the first bay and one in the third. Shallow grooves for shutters can be seen above these openings. No mullion mortices can be seen, suggesting that none were present, or that they were fixed into a separate window head. Braces once again sprang from the

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

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BUILDING RECORDING

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

jowled posts of the elevation, but those within the façade descend, rather that rise from the posts, so as to pass beneath the window openings. The arrangement differs, however, in the third bay. Two braces are present, but no secondary posts, the braces rising instead to the eaves-plate. Bay 3, at 2.39 m. in length, is the shortest within the building, but perhaps the most important. The roof above it is soot blackened, indicating that it was open from the ground floor to the roof, and contained an open-hearth. It cannot therefore have been jettied along its frontage, as with no floor there were no joists to support a jetty. Without a jetty the frontage must have been recessed here, at first floor level, and must have resembled, albeit loosely, the recessed hall of a Wealden, the aforementioned braces rising to support the flying eaves-plate as it crossed the recess. That this bay was partitioned from those to the north and south is clear from the empty stave mortices that can be seen on both the upper and lower faces of the adjacent tie-beams. Indeed, soot-blackened lath and daub still survives above the collar of one frame (C–C). The two southern bays were almost certainly floored, like the north bay, but no direct evidence for the floors now survives. Inspection of the front and rear elevations here revealed evidence for two small windows (see above) beneath the eaves, suggesting therefore that there was an upper floor. These were again closed by sliding shutters, which

Jetty bracket preserved in north wall of structure.

would have been difficult to reach without a floor. No stave mortices are present on the tie-beam that lies between the two bays, indicating therefore that a single room was present. Evidence for the ground floor arrangement has been lost, but a single room may also have been present here. Stairs to the upper rooms must have been located within both ends of the building, but any evidence for these has been lost along with the floors. One could be excused, given the presence of a smoke bay, for assuming the property started life as a dwelling, but its features, in particular the crude illumination, suggest otherwise. The property was perhaps built as a workshop or warehouse, rather than a dwelling, the open hearth maybe serving some light industrial use. Such a function is not such a surprise given the history of Sandwich, as we know,

from documentary sources, that workshops and warehouses were present within the town in medieval times. Medieval timber-framed buildings that are not houses or barns are unusual, and the discovery of such a building is important. The building’s features suggest it was built around the turn of the sixteenth century, but none lend themselves to a precise date, and it could be a little earlier. By the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century Sandwich had been in gradual decline for many years, and had reached a period of particular economic hardship and stagnation. It seems unlikely therefore that the property was built during these decades, but it could have bucked the trend. The building has seen many alterations since it was built, but none are of the sort one might expect to see within a domestic dwelling, suggesting therefore it never was one. Later fabric could have been swept away when the ﬂoors were removed and the structure opened up to form a garage, but one would expect at least some evidence to survive. The alterations that are present seem more consistent with the adaptation of a non-domestic building. The front (west) elevation, for example, has been underpinned in 2¼ inch brick of seventeenth-century appearance, but this does not accommodate the features one would expect to see in the front wall of a house, but includes instead a wide carriage entrance and a single window.

G The Hilden Manor public house, Tonbridge Peter Seary and Rupert Austin

Remains of base-cruck in open-hall.

The Hilden Manor public house is a great, sprawling building, beside the London Road, between Tonbridge and Hildenborough (TQ 582 474). It was severely damaged by a ﬁre in February 2005. The destruction brought to light the remains of a late fourteenth-century, timber-framed, manor house. Its owners, Whitbread, agreed to fund emergency recording and an archaeological survey of the standing remains, to inform its reconstruction. A documentary study was also undertaken to help place the building in context. Before the Norman Conquest, Hilden seems to have been one of the ‘dens’ or swine pastures within the Wealden woodland, belonging, with much of the surrounding land, to the archbishop’s manor of Otford. Many upland manors had such holdings. These ‘dens’ seem, at ﬁrst, to have provided pannage for hogs, but most had been cleared for arable by the time of the Conquest. Following the Conquest, the land for about a league’s radius around Tonbridge Castle (the Lowy) was granted to Richard

ANNUAL REPORT 30

of Tonbridge, and held by his descendents, the Clares, Earls of Gloucester. The Archbishop madeover his lands within the Lowy, including Hilden, to this family, but retained the quitrents; jurisdiction was split between Otford and Tonbridge. In time, a number of manors developed, of which Hilden seems, from the point of view of Tonbridge, to have been the foremost – becoming the principal manor of the eponymous borough. Hildenborough was the north-western borough of four, into which the Lowy was divided, the others being Hadlow, Tonbridge, and South[borough]. Each borough appointed its own constable (independent of the system of hundreds). A law court appears to have been established at Hilden by the mid thirteenth century, to whose jurisdiction the Clares, contentiously, appropriated a number of neighbouring estates. Hilden Manor’s own estate (which would, in 1550, comprise eight messuages and 500 acres) was probably largely arable, interspersed with shaws, with a few meadows to the north, and, to the south, some water-meadows beside a branch of the Medway. Tree-ring analysis showed that the present manor house was built around the middle of the fourteenth century. At some point in the early ﬁfteenth century, Hilden Manor passed into the hands of the Vane, or Fane, family, ‘of antient Welsh extraction’ (Hasted 1798: 75), who sold it to the Tattershalls toward the end of the century. The latter family held the manor for about ﬁfty years. John Tattershall, inheriting the manor in 1551, sold it, almost immediately, to the Dixons, ‘a scotch family of distinction’ (Seymour

1776: 463), who eagerly set about buying land in the neighbouring parishes. It is likely that the Tattershalls and Dixons were responsible for many of the signiﬁcant early alterations to the house. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century Hilden Manor came into the possession of the Dyke family. The Dykes had important estates elsewhere and are unlikely to have dwelt in the manor house, which was, probably, from this time, leased as a farmhouse. About 1767, Sir John Dixon Dyke sold

Remains of crown-post over cross-wing.

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CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BUILDING RECORDING

View of interior of the ﬁre-damaged building.

the manor to the Harveys, of Tonbridge, one of whom built himself a new house, ‘Hilden House’, on one of the nearby fields. Soon afterwards, the estate was divided into three parts, two of which were sold on. The old manor house, along with about half of the medieval estate, was taken by one John Auldjo; he and his successors lived in London and leased the farm to a series of tenants. Around the turn of the century the house began a brief spell as a private residence, but became the ‘Hilden Manor Guest House’ in the early 1930s. By 1938 the Hilden Manor was a ‘road house’ – one of two such establishments in Hildenburgh, which provided a convenient halt on the road from London to the south coast. A large swimming pool had been excavated to the south of the building. In 1954 the Hilden Manor was put up for sale as a ‘famous, free, fully-licensed, freehold road house hotel.’ The first phase of the present building was built in the mid fourteenth century as a timber-framed house, comprising a two-bay open-hall flanked at both ends by wings. As befits a manor house, the hall was uncommonly large (roughly 8.6 m. long by 7.7 m. wide, and about 8.5 m. high at the ridge). The southern end of the hall seems to have been its high end. Beyond this lay a two-storey cross-wing which probably housed a ground-floor parlour and first-floor solar. The construction of this wing initially suggested an early fifteenth-century date, but tree-ring analysis (undertaken by Nottinghamshire Tree-Ring Dating Laboratory) showed that it must be contemporary with the hall. Unusually, the short service wing, at the north end of the building, seems to have been of a single storey; unlike the south wing, it lay in-line with, rather than across, the low end of the hall. Traces of a partition suggest it may have been divided, as one would expect, into a buttery and pantry. Few traces of the original open-hall survive, much having been lost long ago through rebuilding. Its most impressive feature, however, a base-cruck cross-frame, remains. Base-crucks, such as this, are rare in Kent, and are generally associated with early buildings; they seem to have been introduced as an alternative to the aisle-posts that punctuate our earliest medieval halls. Base-crucks overcame the need for such posts in spanning large halls. Instead, these long, curved timbers leant into the hall to support the arcade-plates. Unlike true crucks (which are unknown in this county) base-crucks did not span

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Front elevation of the ﬁre-damaged building.

the full width of a hall; a separate tie-beam (or in some cases upper and lower tie-beams) completed the frame. Remarkably, the remains of an engaged column, with a moulded capital, can be seen at the bottom of the west base-cruck. The roof over the hall was rebuilt in the late seventeenth century, re-using many of the original rafters. The medieval one was probably supported by a squat crown-post; the eaves were little more than three metres high. The hall was entered, by opposed entrances at the low end of the hall, via a cross-passage; alas, no traces of these features have survived. Originally the hall was the only heated room in the building, its central open hearth coating the roof timbers with soot. Evidence suggests a pair of large windows lit the high end of the hall, whilst its back wall was distinguished by a deep-chamfered dias-beam. No trace of the dais-bench survives, but the wall behind it, under the said beam, was of vertical planks rather than the lath-and-plaster to be seen elsewhere in the building. A timber door, under a steep, pointed arch, led into the parlour in the south cross-wing. From thence a ﬂight of stairs (perhaps on the south side of the south bay) led up to the solar. The solar, or principal bedroom, was spur-jettiedout from the front and side of the wing, emphasizing its status. It was lit by wide, unglazed, two-light windows, with grooves for shutters, straddling the posts amid the elevations. An interesting detail is that there seems to have been a small window

within the angle of the forward projection, through which the owner could observe those standing at his front-door (this may, however, have been a late medieval insertion). The solar was originally open to the roof. The crown-post had a decorated capital and base, and an octagonal shaft. The roof was gabled at the front but hipped at the back, an unusual, but not unknown, combination. The original building has seen many alterations. At some point (perhaps during the sixteenth century) a floor was inserted in the south bay of the hall, providing an additional room adjoining the solar; the beams and joists were embellished with mouldings. The remainder of the hall was floored in at a later date, at which point a brick chimney became necessary; this was raised against the north face of the central truss, with a south-facing, ground-floor hearth. A new set of stairs may also have been made at this time. Another chimney, serving the parlour, would be raised against the side of the cross-wing, perhaps during the first half of the seventeenth century. During the sixteenth century a timber-framed lean-to was made at the back of the building and during the seventeenth century the hall received a dormered roof. Further small extensions were made during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and when it became a road house the building was extended even further to the north and west.

Moulded capital on west base-cruck.

BUILDING RECORDING

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL WORK

PALAEOENVIRONMENTAL WORK Enid Allison

Last year saw the beginnings of specialist work being carried out on insect remains from sites excavated by other units and organizations. Further work of this sort has now been made possible thanks to a grant provided by the Friends to purchase a new low-power zoom microscope. It had become increasingly obvious to me that whilst the microscope I was using was perfectly adequate for most of the unspecialized work that I had been doing (usually requiring a magnification of x10), it just wasn’t good enough for the demands of specialist work at higher magnifications. This was brought home to me when I visited somebody who had a good microscope with specimens that I had previously failed to identify with my own. One beetle wing case viewed with the superior microscope had a strikingly obvious whirlpool pattern, for example, whereas it had merely looked a bit lumpy with my own equipment. I now have a Meiji EMZ Zoom microscope and a florescent-ring illuminator. The latter fits around the lens and produces an even, cold bluish-white light with very little glare, even from shiny beetle remains. This makes a huge difference to the amount of texture that you can see on the various remains - a very important factor for identification. A particularly interesting external project involved the analysis of insect remains from a peat sequence in Cheshire (Allison et al. 2005). The peat was sampled during archaeological monitoring of the excavation of a lagoon on the Danes Moss landfill site near Macclesfield. Analysis was carried out on insect assemblages as previous work in the area had concentrated on plant remains. Radiocarbon dates obtained from plant remains preserved within the samples indicated that the peat sequence spanned much of the early Holocene from the almost immediately post-glacial period around Cal BC 9500 up to Cal BC 4400. The distribution of many insects in England is heavily influenced by temperature and the distributions of various species in the past can often

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be used as climatic indicators. The warmer climate of the early Holocene period was reﬂected in the insect assemblages recovered from Danes Moss – several beetle and bug species were present that indicate that the area was somewhat warmer than it is at the present day, perhaps comparable with the current climate of southern England.

4 2

6 7

1 Stamford Bridge, East Riding 2 Melton, East Riding 3 St James Boulevarde, Gallowgate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 4 Treasure House, Beverley, East Riding 5 Danes Moss, Macclesﬁeld, Cheshire 6 Morganite site, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, London 7 Asda, Crawley, West Sussex

Beetles and bugs from aquatic and marshland habitats dominated all of the assemblages. The general picture provided is of an acid bog with still, shallow, well-vegetated water and generally rather wet ground conditions. In particular, there were numerous insects found in Sphagnum moss. A weevil found on sedges (Carex) was consistently recorded throughout the sequence and beetles from dead and rotten wood habitats provided evidence for stands of ancient trees. There was a signiﬁcant change in the fauna in the upper parts of the sequence. The appearance of a group of insects associated with heathers (Calluna and Erica) suggested that localized drying had occurred allowing the development of areas of heath. The continuing abundance of aquatic and marshland insects, however, indicated that the area was still substantially wet. The habitat of a ground beetle Agonum ericeti found in the uppermost sample seems to typify the environment at this period. It is an inhabitant of Sphagnum bogs, found both in wet moss and on quite dry areas including hummocks of Calluna and other vegetation, and on areas of dry exposed peat (Lindroth 1986, 284). More recent material was studied from archaeological features excavated along the route of a water pipeline near Stamford Bridge in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Rich assemblages of beetles, bugs and other invertebrates obtained from two Romano-British ditches and a pit provided evidence for local environmental conditions and land use (Allison 2006a). The range of invertebrates recovered showed that the ditches and the pit all held standing water with duckweed (Lemna) growing on the surface. On land there were damp areas with sedges (Carex) but away from the moister areas various ground beetles and other taxa provided a picture of generally rather open and dry ground. Other taxa indicate that there were shady habitats such as would be provided, for example, by a hedgerow. Grassland was indicated by a number of species and the abundance of a wide variety of beetles

PALAEOENVIRONMENTAL WORK

associated with herbivore dung pointed to the use of nearby land for grazing. A range of plant-feeding insects found on nettles (Urtica), docks (Rumex), Polygonum, crucifers, and mallows (Malva) showed the presence of weedy vegetation. There was also a shieldbug that feeds on forget-me-nots (Myosotis) on dry soil. Perhaps the most significant implication of the insect fauna from Stamford Bridge was in providing further evidence for a warmer climate in Yorkshire during the Romano-British period than there is at the present day. Several species of beetles and bugs were recorded that are now either restricted to the south of England or rare in the northern counties. One of these, the nettle ground bug Heterogaster urticae, has regularly been recorded from archaeological deposits in the north of England, including some of Roman date, and has been discussed by Kenward (2004). Its occurrence appears to indicate that mean July temperatures would have been about 1 degree Celsius above late twentieth-century values (Institute of Terrestrial Ecology 1978). Detailed analyses have also been carried out on insect material from Iron Age and Roman ditches and deposits at Melton in the East Riding of Yorkshire (Allison 2006b), a medieval well in Crawley in West Sussex (Allison 2005a), and from medieval features in Newcastleupon-Tyne (Allison 2005b). All provided useful evidence for local vegetation and environmental conditions. Two assessments were carried out that may lead to further detailed work in the future. The first of these concerned peat sequences sampled during an archaeological evaluation in connection with a proposed development at the Morganite site, Point Pleasant, Wandsworth (Branch et al. 2005). The second was of material from Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, from a site that would have been the heart of the medieval town. The insect assemblages were of particular interest because they had the potential to provide information on the nature of industrial activities on the site. Ectoparasites of sheep (lice and keds) were recovered from several of the samples and suggest the processing of fleeces and/or wool (Allison 2005c). Meanwhile, a loyal team of stalwart volunteers continues to help in the processing of samples from Trust sites. At Ellington School, Ramsgate the fills of prehistoric pits, post-holes and ditches, and an AngloSaxon sunken-floored structure and associated features were sampled extensively during the excavations carried out over the summer (p.29). Cremations were also sampled to maximize the recovery of bone.

Plant remains preserved by charring were present in many of the samples. Hazelnut shell was common in several features, including the fill of a large Neolithic pit that contained flint tools and and debris. Cereal chaff and seeds of arable weeds were particularly well represented in samples from a later prehistoric ditch, suggesting the disposal of waste from cereal processing. Soil conditions on the site do not appear to have been particularly favourable for the preservation of shell or bone but two prehistoric deposits were very rich in shellfish remains indicating the exploitation of local marine resources for food. The assemblage recovered from one of these was dominated by mussel shell (Mytilus edulis) with small amounts of edible winkle (Littorina littorea). There were a few fragments each of whelk (Buccinum undatum), cockle (Cerastoderma edule), and peppery furrow shell (Scrobicularia plana). With the exception of whelk the same species were recorded from the second assemblage: cockle shell was in the majority, but mussel, peppery furrow shell and winkle were all common. The remains recovered will be reported upon more fully when detailed analysis, particularly of the plant remains, has been carried out. At New Romney a large number of soil samples was taken from mainly medieval deposits on two sites excavated along the line of the new sewerage system. The bulk of these samples have been processed and a wide range of biological remains was recovered. Again, the results will be reported upon in a future volume.

Acknowledgements Much of the sieving of bulk soil samples from sites excavated by the Trust was carried out by Jess Twyman. We are grateful to volunteers Elaine Brazier, Ann Chadwick, Marie Goodwin and Bob Robson who have painstakingly sorted through the dried residues from the samples to recover artefacts and biological remains.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

PALEOENVIRONMENTAL WORK

WHITEFRIARS POST-EXCAVATION The extensive series of excavations at Whitefriars, begun way back in November 1999, came to an end in December 2003, but that excavation landmark certainly did not represent the end of the project. Since then, archaeologists have been busy in the Titan cabin (the former Big Dig Visitor Centre) based down at Kingsmead, piecing together the results of over four years of ﬁeldwork. During the excavations, every separate layer of soil, every wall, every feature, was pulled apart and subsequently removed to reveal its nature. This process of destruction was meticulously recorded by the excavation team, who noted, drew and photographed every one of some 22,000 separately excavated contexts. Our post-excavation task has been to re-assemble this data, so that it can be used to tell the history of the project area from the early Roman period through to the post-medieval. The work began on the smaller excavations, so that the processes by which we sorted and arranged the data could be altered and improved as necessary. It was not a case after all, of simply ordering the data as we understood it, but of ensuring that the ﬁnal product could be used, and clearly understood, by the specialists who will be involved in the next phase of the project, namely the study of the material assemblages. There was invariably much discussion about the best way to display the

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quantity of data, and a system was devised which put text, photographs and plans together to form a visually informative text. Once site narratives had been written for the small excavations, work moved onto the larger sites of St George’s Lane and Gravel Walk. To make the work more manageable, they were divided into areas, each of which was tackled, in the early stages, by a separate member of the team. Only once a preliminary examination of the stratigraphy had been undertaken did a single individual write descriptions of the overall phases of activity, a task which, for the site at St George’s, resulted in a site overview which was 35,000 words long! We are now coming to the end of this phase of the project, but this would not have been possible without the skills of our post-excavation team. Our thanks go to Phil Mayne, Rebecca Newhook and Tracey Smith for the quality of their work. Once all the reports have been finished, a task which we hope to have c o mplete b y

Alison Hicks and Mark Houliston

September 2006, we will begin the next phase of the project. So far, other than a preliminary dating of the pottery assemblage and an initial cataloguing of the other ﬁnds, the excavation materials have yet to be studied. This will be the next major task. Specialists will examine the material assemblages and, with the site narratives to hand, will be able to assess their worth in increasing our understanding of various aspects of Canterbury and beyond. Given the scale and quality of the remains, it seems likely that we will be able to answer some far-reaching questions about the nature of settlement within the Whitefriars area of Canterbury over the last 2000 years.

EDUCATION

CAT KITs – inspired and happy people! In last year’s Annual Report I spoke of this project to build sixty kits of archaeological ﬁnds to give away on permanent loan to Canterbury District schools. In September 2005 three special training sessions were conducted by myself and Ian Coulson, History Adviser for Kent Schools where the stacks of kits were given away to local primary, secondary and special school teachers. There were plenty of opportunities for handling the CAT KIT contents – pot sherds, animal jaws, tiles, shells and chunks of what (to the untrained eye) looked like dried mud, but, hey! to the newly-trained and now perceptive eye, becomes a piece of clay daub still bearing the impression of the wattle branches!

The sessions were great fun. People went away inspired and happy with their new ‘toys’, eager to explore them further. The following months were spent evaluating the use of the CAT KITs by talking to pupils and teachers and collating feedback. The formal termination date for this project is June 2006. Children and teachers have clearly been enjoying themselves and the feedback to date has been very positive. Primary schools have the ﬂexibility to do cross-curricula work and are using the CAT KITs in the classroom to teach History, Maths, Art, Science, Literacy and IT. Teachers like the combination of resources in a CAT KIT – the ﬁnds, the teaching ideas and reconstruction photos on the website. As they become familiar with the kits they begin to see other ways of using the materials. The broad ‘Archaeology’ theme of the kit also makes it a useful resource for introducing ‘What is History?’ to young secondary school students. Eleven- and twelve-year olds at the Orchard School, Canterbury, had new classrooms built at their site and they took the opportunity to look at modern and ancient building technology using CAT KIT materials and talking to the builders. An opportunity grabbed by the teacher! The project is being publicised in periodicals and at conferences and public events. After publicity on our website, I am also speaking with Harvard University who would like to adapt the CAT KIT idea and produce their own

To find out more about the CATKITs project go to www.canterburytrust.co.uk

Marion Green

version for teachers in the USA. Some extra kits were built in excess of the number needed for local schools and a few of these have gone out to share among clusters of schools in Thanet and Medway while others remain for short term loan to other interest groups or clubs. Building on our experience, we will continue with our long term plan to build more kits to go into more Kent schools. Within the Kent Archaeological Society Education Committee we are making plans and the ﬁrst of the new tranche of CAT KITs will be available to schools in West Kent. All parties involved are agreed that this selective use of archaeological material is very beneﬁcial and the Trust is very happy to be working with the Kent Archaeological Society to extend this project.

Some quotes from CAT KIT users: ‘It’s much better than looking at pictures’ (child) ‘Cool! That’s well good’ (child!) ‘The children were highly motivated and wanted to do more. Lovely hands on activity which beneﬁted all’ ‘One of the main factors that appealed to the children was the fact that everything in the CAT KIT is real and has survived hundreds of years. It is the genuine article!’ As a spin-off from this project, some ‘twilight’ sessions were held for teachers wanting to ﬁnd out more about Archaeology.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

EDUCATION

Public events and exhibitions ‘Little Dig’ goes to the Netherlands Our ‘Little Dig’ first appeared at the Big Dig excavations at Canterbury Whitefriars in 2002. It has since been a Young Archaeologists Club activity for National Archaeology Week and featured at a family Roman weekend at Richborough fort. In the summer of 2005 this popular activity appeared at the Kent Festival at Lisse (between Haarlem and Amsterdam), perhaps best known for its tulip ﬁelds. The Kent Festival is a new venture from the House of Britain, an established Dutch tour company, in partnership with Kent Tourism Alliance. The aim was to promote the county of Kent as a number one destination for short break holidays to Britain. To this end, the Trust was invited by Canterbury Museums to work with them and Canterbury Cathedral to help represent the city. The partnership between Canterbury Museums and the Trust is a natural one as together we aim to promote local history and archaeology and the two organisations have worked together on many occasions. The Rupert Bear display from the Museum of Canterbury showed an alternative face of the museums service while some traditional hands-on digging at the Little Dig kept the young visitors engaged and a digital display of the Whitefriars Big Dig entertained the grown-ups. The event was successful and good fun, despite some dodgy weather!

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‘Mud, Thatch and Plague Rats’ This schools and public event was staged by Canterbury Museums and the Trust in the Museum of Canterbury as part of National Science, Engineering and Technology Week 2006. The theme was ‘investigating buildings’ from Roman times to the

present and the creatures who have shared our homes. Visitors found out about building technologies, the ‘rubbish’ we have accumulated over the centuries and ‘house mates from hell’ (ﬂeas, lice etc.). Thanks to Enid Allison and Andy Linklater for their consistent support working with school children.

EDUCATION

Cranbrook Museum exhibition The museum invited the Trust to put on a summer exhibition at this charming museum. As 2005 was the anniversary of our creation we displayed a collection of Andrew Savage’s excellent images representing thirty years’ work in the county.

Folkestone People’s History Centre The FPHC is a joint initiative between Canterbury Christ Church University, the Creative Foundation, local historians, archaeologists and historical societies, Kent County Council, local schools and colleges. The Centre aims to make history, archaeology and geology accessible to the people of Folkestone and wants to encourage a relationship between academic study of history and popular enthusiasm for the past. The Centre is based in Folkestone’s Old High Street and is manned regularly. We assisted with the launch of the Centre and are liaising with Christ Church regarding a Heritage Lottery Fund bid for an extensive long term community project.

Canterbury Whitefriars Roman Tower The Roman tower discovered during the Whitefriars project (see p.000) has been conserved and will be the centre piece of a permanent public exhibition space for Canterbury Archaeological Trust. The exhibition is due to open in May 2006.

Archaeology on the web Some unusual applications! The Trust’s website receives an average of 100,000 visits a year and people are using the material for a variety of reasons. When we receive some notiﬁcation of interest, it is normally a request to use web images to support a formal educational project. Other requests are more unusual. One American magazine, ‘This Old House’ (Home Improvements and Remodelling) used our diagram of a Roman hypocaust as an interesting addition to an article about modern ‘Radiant Floor Heating’! Another request was to use a CAT picture – literally – as it was a photograph of cat paw prints on a Roman tile we had found on site. Take a look at www.mica-maca.com/antika.htm to see the photograph among a whole host of feline related images compiled by a Croatian art teacher.

Kent Archaeological Society History Show This was a lively one-day event organized by the Kent Archaeological Society and held at Maidstone Museum. It was an opportunity for amateur and professional groups dedicated to the History and Archaeology of the county to share their knowledge, discoveries and represent aspects of UK documentary heritage. If the pilot is successful the archived site will subsequently form part of the British Library permanent collections, remaining available to researchers in the future. Users will beneﬁt from having access to material that is no longer available on the live site and the Consortium will aim to take the necessary preservation action to keep the Trust site accessible as hardware and software change over time.

Other educational endeavours The usual wide variety of assistance given to individuals and institutions continues. Simon Pratt at Canterbury’s Tannery site spent a summer morning

experience with the local community. The Kent Archaeological Society Education Committee was represented by a stall showing the work of the Trust and North Downs Young Archaeologist Club who both receive valuable funding from the Society. with me showing some of the site’s discoveries, past and present, to children from the Archaeology Club of Valley Park Community School, Maidstone. The site developers, Bellway Homes, gave an overview of the Tannery development project and provided drinks and cakes. As a result of the CAT KITs project, Canterbury Christ Church University Secondary Education department is now liaising with CAT regarding support for PGCE students, several visits have been made to classrooms and many Work Experience students have come to us from schools throughout Kent. One boy (at school in Tonbridge) even travelled daily from his home in Surrey. Now that’s keen!

Trust website selected to join British Library web preservation project The British Library is a founding member of the UK Web Archiving Consortium consisting of The British Library, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), the National Archives, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales and the Wellcome Library. The Consortium is undertaking a two year pilot project to determine the long-term feasibility of archiving selected web sites. Canterbury Archaeological Trust has been invited to participate in this project by allowing the Consortium to archive our website, selected by the British Library to

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

EDUCATION

THE GARDEN When Denne the Builders relocated their small works department to Wingham and the Trust became the sole occupiers of the premises we inherited the small forecourt garden. at 92A Broad Street. In 1986 Denne’s ﬂagpole came down and some new beds were made. Early in 1988 two rowans were planted as part of a tree-planting scheme organized by Andrew Clague after the hurricane of October 1987. For many years the garden was looked after by one-time Secretary to the Friends and keen gardener, Margaret Cowles. When ill health led to her reluctant retirement, maintenance became intermittent. By the summer of 2005 the garden had become rather overgrown – mainly by a large and very rampant ivy which not only covered all of the front of the building next to the road to a depth of almost

ANNUAL REPORT 30

Enid Allison and Peter Atkinson

a metre, but had completely filled the guttering and insinuated itself between the weather boarding into the Finds store and underneath the roof tiles. The Canterbury Archaeological Trust sign was damaged and a number of plants growing in the beds below the ivy had been effectively suffocated. As part of general improvements being undertaken at the Trust it was suggested that the garden was tidied up and a new sign erected. Removing the ivy was the first task and not a pleasant one! It was carried out over several days of what was probably the hottest week of last year. The leaves and branches were covered in a thick black tarry residue (presumably congealed traffic fumes), and they contained a worrying variety of tarantula-esque wildlife. Most worrying of all, the

building looked really awful after the ivy had been removed! John Adams stepped in at this stage and stripped off the remaining small ivy stems and roots still clinging to the woodwork and cleaned, painted and renovated the outside of the building. He also ﬁtted brackets for hanging baskets to the outside of the main ofﬁce. The geraniums planted there immediately brightened up the yard and gave a feeling of progress. The rest of the work was carried out on Sundays over the winter. The general idea was to keep the two existing raised beds in the middle and to the left of the garden as you look at it from the street, and to make a new raised bed on the right We also wanted to plant new and less invasive climbers to clothe the

THE GARDEN

building to some extent, replace the existing very dirty gravel, and improve the soil. The whole garden is set on a slab of concrete. Holes for drainage had already been made underneath the beds on the left and in the middle, but the area on the right had to be broken up and hardcore removed before making the new bed. As luck would have it, Andrew Savage happened to be passing as the ﬁrst feeble attempts were being made to break the concrete and manfully offered to do the job! The new raised bed was constructed using stone recovered from the Whitefriars excavation that was

not needed for analysis. Unobtrusive stainless steel and aluminum frames were erected to either side of the new Trust sign to serve as supports for climbers and a trellis was added to screen the garden from the wheelie bin. Discarded pebbles from soil sample residues were used to replace the dirty gravel covering the areas outside the raised beds (the pebbles would have originally formed part of an ancient beach at New Romney). Other bits of stone set into the gravel are from various old excavations. Once the structural bits of the garden were in place, planting could start. The garden faces east,

with the southern end overshadowed by the large building next door and mostly in the shade. The other end next to the main gate is in full sun for much of the day in summer, with the heat accentuated by the closeness of the road and trafﬁc. During the winter the whole area is cold and wet – snow persisted for some time this spring after it had disappeared from everywhere else in Canterbury. The plants chosen for various parts of the garden have attempted to ﬁt in with the different ‘climatic zones’. Time will tell how successful this has been and the garden will no doubt evolve over time to suit the conditions.

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

THE GARDEN

THE FRIENDS Friends of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust Norman Smith

Like its predecessor, when the Friends received a Kent Award for Volunteering Excellence, the year was a memorable one. We celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Trust’s foundation with a series of three lectures on ‘The Building of Canterbury Cathedral: Archaeology and Architectural History’ given by Tim Tatton-Brown, the Trust’s ﬁrst Director. As was to be expected, these Anniversary Lectures were outstanding, in anticipation of which they had been widely advertised locally. The result was an average audience of about 225 per lecture, six or seven times the number we usually achieve. It was clear that many of those who attended were not Friends. Another unusual feature of the lectures was their location at the University, a result of our association on this occasion with Darwin College. With archaeology growing in importance at the University of Kent, we hope that an annual autumn lecture there will become a regular feature of our calendar. The need for the Friends to offer practical and ﬁnancial support to the Trust remains undiminished and on both counts the omens are positive. Happily, a proportion of our new members show a willingness to become actively involved and during the year under review, the Friends’ income from subscriptions (including income tax reclaimed under Gift Aid) and other sources rose sharply while expenses fell so that our net income increased by no less than 38 per cent. It would have been good to report that most of the increased income arose from a growth in our numbers but the contribution from this source, though welcome, was only marginal. The main reason was the introduction of a policy of requesting donations at the door for our evening meetings. On most occasions, this raised only a small surplus over the direct costs of the event, but in the case

ANNUAL REPORT 30

of the Anniversary Lectures, the surplus was very substantial. The event itself was an unusual one and regrettably the ‘windfall’ it produced will not be repeated in 2006–2007.

Tim Tatton-Brown with Paul Bennett at a reception held before the ﬁrst of the anniversary lectures.

Transfers from our general fund to the Trust at £5,584 were little changed from the previous year (£5,957) and for the third year running we saw an increase in our general reserves. Donald Barron Bursary grants to Trust staff fell the year from £683 to £211. Thanks to the latest of a series of generous donations, there was also a further small increase in the size of this fund. Friends should not be too exercised over yearto-year fluctuations in the support given to the Trust and its staff, as often a grant agreed in one financial year is not paid until the subsequent financial year or (very occasionally) is not paid at all for one reason

or another. Details of individual grants agreed from both funds can be found in our regular Newsletters. Although there is no policy to increase our reserves, their growth can only be welcomed as it improves our ability to respond to any acute short-term financial difficulties at the Trust, such as have occurred from time to time in its history. I shall not review the year’s programme of lectures and visits, since this information, too, has already been published in our Newsletters. In last year’s report, I drew attention to a worrying general decline in participation in our events. I am pleased to say that in 2005–2006, this trend was decisively reversed, a matter of considerable satisfaction to me and indeed the entire Committee. During the earlier part of the year, our then Publicity Officer (Tony Redding) continued to maintain a high public profile for us, issuing press releases and distributing our application forms widely. This helped us keep membership stable at just under 400. Sadly, later in the year, a change in personal circumstances led to Tony resigning. Fortunately, we were not without a Publicity Officer for long, with Pip Chapelard joining the Committee to fill the vacancy. Pip was not the only newcomer to the Committee in the year. Mary Berg, whose particular responsibility is to improve our co-ordination with kindred organisations in the area, also joined us. It is the dedication and hard work of our Committee members, both old and new, supported by that of many individual Friends, which makes us an effective organisation. Among the ‘unsung heroes’ are those who save us considerable expense in postage by distributing Newsletters and Annual Reports, a task which has for many years been organised by José Rogers.

MEMBERS OF THE TRUST COUNCIL AND SPONSORS

MEMBERS OF THE TRUST COUNCIL Patron: His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Rowan Williams) Vice-Presidents: Mrs Margaret Collins; Mrs Margaret Scott-Knight, B.A. Chairman: The Lord Mayor of Canterbury (Cllr Marion Atwood [to September 2005]; Cllr Lewis Norris, J.P.) Vice-Chairman: *Mr Mansell Jagger, M.A., Dip.T.P., M.R.T.P.I. Hon. Secretary: *Mr Lawrence Lyle, M.A. Hon. Treasurer: *Mr Andrew Webster, F.C.A. The Dean of Canterbury (The Very Rev. Robert Willis, M.A.) Mr David Anning, F.C.A. *Mr M.H.S. Bridgeford, F.A.S.I. Professor B.W. Cunliffe, C.B.E., M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D., F.B.A., F.S.A. *Mr John Hammond, B.A., Dip.Archaeology *Mr Charles Lambie, B.A.(Hons), Dip.Est.Man. Brigadier John Meardon Dr Frank Panton, C.B.E., Ph.D., C.Chem., F.R.S.C., F.R.Ae.S., F.R.S.A. *Mr Christopher Pout, M.A., B.A. Canterbury Museums Ofﬁcer: Mr K.G.H. Reedie, M.A., F.S.A.(Scot.), A.M.A. *Mr Roger Sharp, B.Sc.(Hons) *Dr David Shaw, B.A., Ph.D., D.Litt. Mr Norman Smith, M.A., M.Phil., F.I.E., F.I.O.D., F.S.B.E. Professor Alfred Smyth, M.A., Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R.G.S. Mrs Margaret Sparks, M.A., D.Litt., F.S.A. *Mr Brian Stocker, M.A., C.Eng., F.I.Struct.E. Professor John Wacher, B.Sc., F.S.A. *Dr Anthony Ward, M.A., Ph.D., F.S.A. *Mr Bruce Webster, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S.

One person appointed by each of the following bodies: The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral: Mr John Burton, Dip. Arch. R.I.B.A. Council for British Archaeology: Mr Tom Hassall, M.A., F.S.A., M.I.F.A. University of Kent at Canterbury: Mr Andrew Butcher, M.A. Canterbury Archaeological Society: Mr Colin Graham, B.A. (Cantab.) Kent County Council: Cllr John Simmonds Medway Council: Cllr Mrs S. Haydock The British Museum: Dr Leslie Webster, F.S.A. Royal Archaeological Institute: Mr Geoffrey Beresford, F.S.A. Kent Archaeological Society: Cllr Paul Oldham, M.A. Heritage Projects Ltd: Dr Peter Addyman, C.B.E., M.A., F.S.A., M.I.F.A. Four members of Canterbury City Council: Cllr Rosemary Doyle Cllr Mary Jeffries Cllr Wesley McLachlan Cllr Ron Pepper, M.A., Dip.Archaeology Non-voting members: Mr Paul Bennett, B.A., F.S.A., M.I.F.A. Mr Peter Clark, B.A., F.S.A., M.I.F.A. Mr Peter Kendall (English Heritage) Honorary Legal Advisers: Furley Page (Mr Nigel Jones, L.L.B.) Auditors: Larkings (Mr Michael J. Moore) * indicates member of the Management Committee

SPONSORS The work of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust is mostly sustained by the commissioning and funding of ﬁeldwork and research projects by clients and other bodies. Together with those mentioned in the preceding reports we would like to acknowledge the support of the following during 2005–2006: 4 Delivery Ltd Abbey Developments Ltd Antler Homes Southeast Ltd B & Q Properties Ltd British Museum BSF Consulting Engineers Burgate Properties Ltd Mr Ivor Burstin Mr & Mrs Caldwell Canterbury College Cardy Construction Graham Carter Associates Mr & Mrs Chaplin Dean & Chapter, Canterbury Cathedral Denne Construction Diocesan Architectural Services Ltd EDF Energy Networks Ltd Mr & Mrs J. Evans Faversham Developments G. & W. Gardiner Building Contractors

Gillcrest Homes Glenmore Investments Ltd Mrs A. Graham Greenback Properties Ltd Nigel Harris Ltd H. Hilton & Son Builders Mr. & Mrs Hinkins Holleran Muchel Partnership JV Ltd Husk’s of Dover Kent County Council Kent County Council Property Group King’s School, Canterbury Kingley Homes Liberty Property Trust UK Ltd Lidl UK (GmbH) Ltd Lloyd Hunt Associates London & Lisbon Properties Ltd Mr J. Loveland Marlin Builders Ltd Mid Kent Homes (South Eastern) Ltd

Mivan (Telecommunications) Ltd Mr Sedat Ozdogan Michael Parkes Surveyors Pavilion Property Group Pentland Homes Playle & Partners PCC, St Bartholomew’s Church, Bobbing PCC St James’ Church, Bicknor PPG Southern Ltd Paul Roberts & Associates St Peter’s Methodist School, Canterbury Radley House Partnership Shaw Design Services Ltd South East Surveys Dr Peter Smith Architects-Planners Shepway District Council Sutton Valence School Clive Tidmarsh Designs Wienerberger Ltd Willmott Dixon Construction

CANTERBURY’S ARCHAEOLOGY 2005–2006

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison, E.P. 2005a, ‘Insect remains from a medieval well excavated on the site of a new Asda store in Crawley, West Sussex’, report produced for Archaeology South East, Site Code: ASD02. Allison, E.P. 2005b, ‘Insect remains from archaeological excavations at St James Boulevarde, Gallowgate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne’, report produced for Northern Archaeological Associates, Site Code: SJB02. Allison, E.P. 2005c, ‘An assessment of insect remains from the Treasure House, Champney gardens, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire’, report produced for Humber Field Archaeology, Site Code: THB2004. Allison, E., Carrott, J., Johnson, K. and Gardner, S. 2005, Technical report: Invertebrate remains from a watching brief at Danes Moss, Macclesﬁeld, Cheshire (project code: 10142), Palaeoecological Research Services 2005/109. Allison, E.P. 2006a, ‘Insect remains from excavations along the route of a water pipeline near Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire’, report produced for Northern Archaeological Associates, Site Code: SWB03. Allison, E.P. 2006b, ‘Insect remains at the site of the proposed waste water treatment works at Melton, East Riding of Yorkshire’, report produced for Northern Archaeological Associates, Site Code: MTW02. Barber, L. 2006, Medieval Life on Romney Marsh, Kent: Archaeological Discoveries from around Lydd, University College London Field Archaeology Unit & English Heritage, London. Bennett, P. 1987, ‘Cranmer House, London Road’, in S.S. Frere, P. Bennett, J. Rady and S. Stow, Canterbury Excavations, intra- and exta-mural sites 1949–55 and 1980–84, the Archaeology of Canterbury VIII, Maidstone, 56–73. Bennett, P. 1991a, ‘Starr Place, St Dunstan’s, Canterbury’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 1990–1991, 7–9.

Crummy, P. 1974, Excavations at Culver Street, the Gilberd School and other sites in Colchester 1971-85, Colchester Archaeological Reports 6, Colchester. Cruse, R.J. 1985, ‘Excavations at Pring’s Quarry, Upper Halling’, Archaeologia Cantiana cii, 129–33. Davis, A.H. 1934, William Thorne’s Chronicle of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury Rendered into English, Oxford. Diack, M. 2001, ‘Archaeological evaluation report on land for a proposed car park extension at Barton Court Grammar School, Longport, Canterbury,’ unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report. Diack, M. 2003a, ‘Barton Court Grammar School, Longport’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2001–2002, 17–18. Diack, M. 2003b, ‘St Dunstan’s Terrace’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2001–2002, 14–17. Dines, H. 1928, ‘The Palaeolithic Site at Bapchild, near Sittingbourne’, The South Eastern Naturalist and Antiquary: being the Transactions of the South-Eastern Union of Scientiﬁc Societies 33, 100–107. Dines, H. 1929, ‘The ﬂint industries of Bapchild’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia 6, 12–26. Everitt, A. 1960, ‘An Account Book of the Committee of Kent, 1646-7’ in I.J. Churchill (ed.), A Seventeenth Century Miscellany, Kent Records XVII, Maidstone, 115–52. Found, B. 2005, ‘An archaeological watching brief at ‘Site J2’ adjacent to Boys Hall Moat, Orbital Park, Ashford, Kent’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report. Frere, S.S., Stow, S. and Bennett, P. 1982, Excavations on the Roman and Medieval Defences of Canterbury, The Archaeology of Canterbury II, Maidstone. Frere, S.S. 1989, ‘Roman Britain in 1988: sites explored’, Britannia xx, 257–336.

Bennett, P. 1991b, ‘Land to the rear of the House of Agnes, St Dunstan’s, Canterbury’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 1990–1991, 9.

Fulford, M. 1984, Silchester: Excavations on the Defences 1974–80, Britannia Monograph 5, Gloucester.

Bennett, P. and Houliston, M. 1988, ‘The Two Sawyers’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 1987–1988, 28.

Gardiner, M. in prep., Excavations at Minster in Sheppey, Kent, Belfast.

Bishop, B.J. forthcoming, ‘Mesolithic occupation and later prehistoric activity at Hillborough, near Reculver’, Archaeologia Cantiana. Blockley, P. 1987a, ‘The Tannery’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 1986–1987, 18. Blockley, P. 1987b, ‘The Tannery’, Archaeologia Cantiana civ, 314. Boden, D. 2005, ‘Holborough Quarry, Snodland’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2004–2005, 41–42. Boden, D. 2006, ‘New Romney Sewer Scheme’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2004–2005, 34–5.

Gomersall, M. 1996, ‘Union Street Roman Defences’, Winchester Museums Service Newsletter 26, 3–5. Harris, E. 1980, ‘Archaeological investigation at Sandgate Castle, Kent 1976–9’, Post Medieval Archaeology 14, 53–88. Harrison, P. 1989, ‘Water Lane, 1988-89’, Winchester Museums Service Newsletter 4, 8–10. Hasted, E. 1798, The History and Topography of the County of Kent (second edition, vol. 5), Canterbury. Helm, R. 2004, ‘Archaeological evaluation of the Corn Field, Holborough Quarry, Snodland’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report, 2004/46.

Boden, D. and Rady, J. 2003, ‘Shelford Farm Estate, Broad Oak Road, Canterbury, Kent. Archaeological excavation on the site of Extraction Area 13. Stratigraphic and assessment report’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report.

Hicks, A. and Houliston, M. 2003, ‘Whitefriars (The Big Dig)’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2000–2001, 4–7.

Booth, P. and Everson, P. 1994, ‘Earthwork survey and excavation at Boys Hall Moat, Sevington, Ashford’, Archaeologia Cantiana cxiv, 411–34.

Hicks, A. and Houliston, M. 2005, ‘Whitefriars’, Canterbury’s Archaeology 2003–2004, 4–7.

Booth, P. and Lawrence, S. 2000, ‘Ashford : Westhawk Farm’, Current Archaeology 168, 478–81.

Hull, M.R. 1958, Roman Colchester, Society of Antiquaries Research Report xx, London.

Branch, N.P., Green, C.P., Vaughan-Williams, A., Swindle, G.E., Batchelor, C.R., Allison, E.P., and Gale, R. 2005, ‘Morganite Site, Point Pleasant (Site Code: MTP04): Environmental Archaeological Assessment’, Archaeoscape unpublished report. Brooks, N. 1989, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral community’ in P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (eds), A History of Canterbury Cathedral, Oxford. Clark, G.T. 1883, ‘On the Dane John’, Archaeologia Cantiana xv, 343–7. Coad, J. 1995, The English Heritage Book of Dover Castle, London. Cotton, C. 1924, The Grey Friars of Canterbury, Franciscan Studies (extra series) II, Manchester. Cross, R. 1990, ‘Waterbrook, Sevington: archaeological assessment. Initial desk study’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust report. Cross, R. 1994, ‘Reculver Road Caravan Park, Beltinge and Blacksole Farm, Reculver Road, Herne Bay: preliminary historic environment assessment’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust report. Cross, R. 1998, ‘Folkestone drainage area plan. Sandgate: pumping station and ﬂood prevention scheme (3453K)’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust report, 1998/2.

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Kenward, H.K. 2004, ‘Do insect remains from historic-period archaeological occupation sites track climatic change in Northern England?’, Environmental Archaeology 9, 1, 47–59. Kerney, M.P. 1971, ‘A Middle Weichselian Deposit at Halling, Kent’, Proceedings of the Geological Association 82, 1–11. Larkin, L.B. (ed.) 1860, ‘Inquisitiones Post Mortem, nos 25–36 (38 Hen.III, 1253/54–47 Hen. III, 1263)’, Archaeologia Cantiana iii, 241–74. Lindroth, C.H. 1986, ‘The Carabidae (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark’, Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica 15/ 2, Leiden. Linklater, A. 2000, ‘Folkestone-Hythe Flood Alleviation Scheme. Field report on archaeologocal monitoring’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report, 2000/14. Linklater, A. 2002, ‘An archaeological watching brief during the cutting of three foundation test pits in advance of works within the area of Choir House, Canterbury Cathedral Precincts, Canterbury’, unpublished Canterbury Archaeological Trust client report, 2002/101. Linklater, A. 2003, ‘No 6 Love Lane’ Canterbury’s Archaeology 2002-2003, 18–19.

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